The Leader-less Mission!
by DoodleDumble
Summary: While travelling through space with Professor Honeycutt, a sudden attack on the ship causes Raph, Donnie and Mikey to become stranded on a rough, foreign planet where they must use stealth to survive and regain contact with the others! Meanwhile, Fugitoid, Casey and April are stuck on the Ulixes with the Fearless Mother Hen In Blue while they try to rescue the, well...C-team?
1. Chapter 1 (Prologue)

Donnie woke up with a yawn.

Looking to his side, the vast expanses of space welcomed him to the new-day-or-felt-like-a-new-day-anyway; it was always hard for his brothers and two friends to tell since they'd boarded the spacecraft Ulixes with Professor Honeycutt. While the circumstances of their exile to space had been the main monster in the heads of the six survivors, Donnie couldn't think of a better place than the constellations to regroup.

Throwing his legs over one of the temporary beds the Professor had provided to each of them, Donnie got up and made his way to the main area for some technology-generated coffee, stretching.

Inside were two of his brothers and the Professor, going about their business.

"Well, good morning, sleepy head." Leo teased, flashing him a grin before returning his attention to an electronic display of their rout the Professor was working with at the front window.

"Morning." Donnie grinned, before looking at his other older brother, stretched out in a seat nearby, still trying to pretend he was awake. "Good morning, Raph.

"M'n..." Was all he could get out of him, and he chuckled.

"Where's Mikey? He's usually the first up." Donnie asked, going to the machine to make his cup of coffee and quickly scanning over the electronic screen the Professor stood in front of. They still had to capture two of the black hole generator pieces and were working their way toward the next.

"He did get up, saw we weren't doing much and went back to bed." Leo said, a laugh at the edges of his voice. "Classic Mikey. Casey and April are asleep, too. Can't blame them too much though, sometimes the in-between trips get a little dull. Ah," He turned to Professor Honeycutt, "No offense, Professor."

"None taken, Leonardo!" The cyborg chirped, hardly distracted from his work.

Grinning, Donnie took a big gulp of the already-made hot coffee before taking it with him on his way to the deeper parts of the Ulixes. Sometimes, when there wasn't much activity, the second-youngest liked to explore some of the inner workings of the Ulixes where the Professor had generously granted permission. Some of the energy generators and recyclers that powered the ship had recently held most of his interest.

On the way, he met his little brother, a bit surprised to see the youngest coming back out of his sleeping quarters.

"Morning, lazy bones." Donnie chuckled. Mikey didn't indicate he really heard or cared about the playful tease, exaggeratedly yawning and stretching instead.

"Dude, what time is it? I swear it could be noon." He said, coming to throw himself over the oldest in refusal to hold himself up, getting protests in response. "I'm hungry. Did anyone make breakfast?"

"What kind of question is that?" Donnie jibed back, pulling Mikey off of him and pulling his arm over his shoulder instead, leading his poor incapable brother to the main room. "Come on, let's get food. But no more pasta, _please._ "

"Oh, come on! I need to learn the whole extended family of pizza..." Mikey laughed.

Mid-sentence, however, a loud sound boomed down the hallway and the ground underneath them rocked a little, almost sending the brothers to the floor.

"What was that?!" Mikey asked, the two of them merely looking at each other before bolting to the front room where the others were.

When they arrived, Leo and Raph were both on their feet looking intently at the electronic display on the large window at the front of the room, Casey and April rushing in not long after. "What's going on, you guys?!" Donnie asked, he and Mikey hurrying to look.

The monitor displayed images near the back of the ship, where a blast mark could clearly be seen and enemy ships hovering in the distance. "It's an attack," Leo said, gripping the seat in front of him and grimacing at the live feed. "I don't recognize the ships."

"Oh dear," Fugitoid said, clearly distressed. "It looks like we have a few more angry stragglers looking for revenge after our little pit-stop before." Turning suddenly, he looked at everyone present with a stern, scolding face. "See, do you know now why I warned you all to be careful? This is what happens when you go about ruining random fugitives' days and causing chaos!"

Having no time to respond, everyone stumbled as the ship rocked with another laser attack from one of the enemy ships, and Leo turned back to Fugitoid, slightly desperate. "They're trying to bring us down! Isn't there anywhere we can hide until they go away? They've got us outnumbered!"

"No, no! Not here, anyway. All the surrounding planets are highly volatile, and there are many I know nothing about." Fugitoid responded, quickly turning back to the screen as he talked and typing things with fast, electronic _bleep-bloop_ sounds. "I will have to prepare the ship for hyper-flight. Until then we must keep them at bay! Leonardo, drive the ship and escape our pursuers while I make preparations!"

"On it," Leo said, already diving into the driver's seat and lurching the driving handle, throwing everyone off balance but dodging a few more attacks fired at the ship.

"Oh, no!" Honeycutt suddenly cried out, momentarily pausing his actions to look at the camera feed on the damaged part of his ship. "It looks like that first blast grazed the hyperdrive equalizer's electrical circuitry. It needs to be fixed before I'm able to hyper-fly anywhere!"

"April, Casey, I need you to man the weapon stations! You guys," Leo glanced back at his three brothers, each trying to decide whether to man their own stations or suit up for space offense, "I need you to make your way back into the engine so Donnie can repair the damage they've already done, and give him backup. We can't go into hyper flight until the engine is back in order! He'll need help getting into the –"

"Go back inside to get to the engine? That'll take twice as long! We need to get out there so Donnie can go directly to the damage and the electrical panel!" Raph protested.

Leo irritably opened his mouth to retaliate, but in a small spurt of panic he re-focused on the screen and lurched the ship to nearly dodge a laser fired at them. Turning more fully to the three of them, he commanded, "I will _not_ have the three of you up there strapped to the ship by single cords and exposed as we're being fired at and I'm flying to dodge them! You're _going_ through the inside!"

"Uh, no offense Leo," Casey finally piped up over the noise, "But we've already kind of handled situations like that before. We don't really have time to wait for them to go back through there!"

"This time Casey's right, Leo!" Donnie agreed, the other making a face and almost protesting at the "this time" remark. "I need to get out there as quickly as possible!"

Leo sighed, face looking a bit comically defeated. He'd rather not have to put his brothers out there, especially without him, but he knew they were going to get blown out of the sky soon if Donnie didn't make a quick repair to the electronics. "Fine! Just hurry up, their attacks are coming faster!"

It didn't take long for the three brothers to sprint to the launch room and grab their air helmets and latching equipment before notifying the professor they were ready, and the portal to space opened up with a _hiss_ of released air. Quickly attaching their corded hooks to metal rings near the opening, they jumped out to the area where the damage was, taking cover from the lasers and holding on when the ship took sharp turns.

"We've found the damage point, Professor," Donnie reported into his headset communicator built into his air helmet. "I'm gonna start at the control panel to suspend the main current, the equalizer should be a quick fix!"

"We're rooting you on, Donatello!" Fugitoid's voice came through the intercoms in the three air helmets. "Rooting very quickly!"

Raph and Mikey kept a sharp eye on their surroundings and the enemy attacks as Donnie went to work, holding tightly to the ship and positioned near their brother in case they needed to grab him out of the way. "Hey Raph! If they try to board, I'm taking down more aliens than you!" Mikey called, a wild, daring grin on his face.

Raph smirked back. " _Right!_ We'll see about that, shorty!" He laughed.

"You'll still have to beat my record of thirty from last time!" Mikey challenged, adding a raspberry.

"Thirty? I think I saw you get six. And only because they were all the size of your toes! And weren't you running away screaming before you stepped on them?"

Mikey's pouty frown just made Raph laugh harder. "There was something behind us chasing me!"

"Guys, focus!" Leo's voice came over their intercom before the ship lurched again, dodging more lasers. Raph grabbed Donnie's cord when his brother slid a little, but he was quickly back in place.

"Ah, you worry too much." Raph responded, sending Mikey a wink and making him giggle. "Donnie's almost finished anyway."

"Right," Donnie said, shutting two clamps over an electrical panel with a _clank_ before working on a few surrounding wires. "I just have to re-connect the circuit communicator and we'll be –!"

"Incoming!" Mikey called out, an enemy ship suddenly and strategically swinging out from behind another one, coming in much too close for comfort. Mikey jumped and grabbed Donnie, both rushing over to Raph who was waving them over to take cover beside one of the ship wings, but apparently spotting the three attached to the roof of the ship, it started firing.

"Hold on!" Raph grunted, taking the other two in his arms and trying to shield them as all three huddled beside the ship wing just before the lasers struck the ship.

 _Clank!_

With a gasp, the three opened their eyes mid-fire just long enough to see three wire cords flying lose from the roof of the ship, and their feet slightly lifted off the surface as Raph reached to grab hold of the ship –

One combined laser fire from each of the enemy ships together jolted the Ulixes and sent it spiraling away, and the three brothers hurdling toward the nearest planet.

" _Guys!_ " Leo's staticky voice crackled over the intercom, the last thing the three screaming brothers registered before the connection was lost and they entered the planet's atmosphere, flying downward in a barely-withstandable inferno and –

Blackness.

* * *

"Uhg..."

Mikey shifted with his eyes clenched shut, causing a rough crackle in the dry foliage around him before he finally rubbed his eyes and slowly looked around, seeing a dark, desolate-looking landscape around him. He was lying on the ground, a clear mark through the overgrown, messy earth where he'd made a rough impact. He noticed his breathing helmet was gone, but thankfully he seemed to be able to breathe fine here; fortunately, since who knew what oblivion his helmet had flown off to. Broken branches in some nearby trees gave him the impression that his fall had been broken; his aching body gave him that impression, too. As far as the dim light and thorny, tough looking landscape went, this smoggy place gave him a very uneasy feeling.

"Raph? Donnie?" He tentatively called, trying not to be too loud, looking around worriedly for his two brothers and pushing himself up to sit on his knees. Ah! He flinched for a moment as he found out his side hurt. Wrapping his arms around his right side, he looked around meekly, wondering if he should try to get up and look for them or assess his surroundings a little better.

Hearing a rough groan in the distance that was unmistakably his older brother Raph, he instead quickly scrambled up and ran over to his brother, relief and worry washing through him.

"Raph! Raph," He called as he approached, stumbling to a stop and falling over his older brother in a hug, Raph just barely awake enough to half-register what was happening and lower his arms over his little brother in surprise. "Are you ok?"

"Huh...Mikey?" Raph grumbled, pushing himself up onto his elbows and taking a dazed moment to rub his head, which was missing its breathing helmet, as well. He looked awful! Mikey instinctively started looking for horrible injuries on his older brother, but the scuffed-up burns and scratches almost made it impossible to tell what the worst was. Raph finally cleared his vision and peeked at Mikey before starting and quickly snapping to attention, his expression almost indicating somebody had dropped a bomb behind them.

"Mike! You –! Where does it hurt? Hold still for a minute, little bro!" And instead of Mikey checking him, Raph started checking Mikey, going over him with the thoroughness of an alarmed Donatello and the attentiveness of an upset Leonardo.

"What? You should be worried about yourself!" Mikey said, trying to shoo his mother bear of a brother off. "You look like Shredder dragged you through a serrated coal mine."

" _I_ do?" Raph scoffed, clearly intending to say it was the other way around, but both brothers took a second to actually look themselves over. Mikey found out Raph was right; he didn't look any better, and after taking time to pay attention, noticed a wicked pounding in his head, too. Raph hissed and put his hand over what both brothers unspokenly found to be Raph's own worst injury, his left shoulder. It didn't hurt Raph enough to think he broke anything, but there was still going to be some serious down time before it healed fully, of that he was sure.

He looked up at Mikey again, concern coming to his face. "Where's Donnie?"

Mikey's face fell, too, worried. "I don't know. I'd just found you over here. I was gonna keep looking."

Staggering up with a worried grumble, Raph stumbled slightly before helping Mikey haul himself to his own feet. "Donnie?" He called, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Donnie!"

"Donnie?" Mikey called out, too, and a rustling sound made both brothers whip their heads toward a nearby tree.

There was their third brother, hanging up-side-down by vines tangled around a broken branch!

"Donnie!" Raph called, running beneath the second-youngest. He, too, was missing his helmet and looked to be in the same shape as his brothers. "Don, can'ya hear me?"

Donnie moaned, shifting in the vines tangled around him. "Where am I?" He mumbled.

"It's ok, little bro, just hang on," Raph called, jumping to climb the tree while Mikey stood underneath, waiting in case he fell.

"Raph? Mikey?" Donnie asked as Raph made his way closer, straining to pull apart and snap vines to free him. "What happened?"

"I think we've been thrown into one of the planets Fugitoid was talking about," Mikey called up to him, looking up in worry.

"What?" Donnie struggled in the vines now, trying to look around.

"Hold still, Don, you're gonna –!"

With crackles and snaps, vines whipped around and Donnie fell loose from the tree, crying out. Mikey braced himself and held his arms out to catch his brother, both crashing hard to the ground.

"Guys!" Raph jumped down from the tree, running to them as they sat up, groaning. "Guys, are you ok?" He grabbed them both around the shoulders, trying to brace them.

"Uhg...I think I...sprained my ankle..." Donnie whined, grimacing in pain as he held onto his left leg. Both brothers saw it was extra swollen, with nasty purple and black bruises already developing.

"Safe to say you got it when we landed here," Raph said. "Can you walk on it?"

Raph supported both brothers as they got back to their feet, Donnie favoring his left ankle before testing it, using Raph's right shoulder for leverage. Setting it down as gingerly as he could, he immediately hissed and lifted it again, Mikey and Raph exchanging worried looks.

"I wasn hopin' it wouldn't be that bad. Looks like you'll have to stay off of it for a while though, bro." Raph said, bending down to re-arrange some of Donnie's wrappings while Donnie balanced with his hand on Mikey's shell.

Donnie sighed. "This sucks...well, at least it's the worst I came out with. We're lucky to be alive. Are you guys ok?" He asked, suddenly going into Doctor Mode and taking inventory on his siblings' damage.

"My shoulder's messed up and Mikey's been holdin' his side." Raph said, looking at Mikey as if to confirm it was hurt, and Mikey merely nodded in response. Raph finished wrapping Donnie's ankle and pulled them secure, Donnie wincing a little. "That's about the worst of it though, besides all of us looking like hell. There...that should hold until we get back to the ship and get some real medical attention." He stood up, and Donnie rested the toes of his bad foot on the ground.

"Thanks, Raph." He said, shifting to turn to him, still with his hand on Mikey's shoulder. After pausing for a moment, he glanced between the two of them, and they all shared a look, thinking the same thing.

"You think the others are ok?" Mikey quietly asked, twiddling two of his fingers.

Raph sighed, looking down and running a hand over his head. "I sure hope so." He grumbled, pausing before adding, "I'm not even sure if the Ulixes was able to stay in flight, or if they crash-landed somewhere, too."

"I was able to fix the major problem with the engine before we were blown off," Donnie said, "But it still wasn't enough to let the Professor go into hyper-flight. And they were still being attacked, too. I hope they got away before more damage was done..."

"Well, hopefully they wouldn't go into hyper-flight anywhere after they lost us, anyway." Mikey chuckled, bringing a grin to his brothers' faces. "I can see Leo now." He started imitating their oldest brother, twitching from side to side and flailing his arms as the other two started laughing. " _Oh! No! Professor, release your power core, we're gonna nuke these guys! Hang on everybody, I'm about to charge the planet!"_

All three brothers laughed, but after a moment, it came to an awkward stop and the brothers stood there, feeling increasingly guilty with each passing second. Now that they thought of it, that wasn't really a joke. Their oldest brother had never lost his whole team before, certainly not like _that._ He hadn't wanted them exposed in the first place. He must be worried sick. Really, though. Casey, April and Fugitoid had to be terribly worried, too.

Mikey sighed, scratching his face. "Ok, so maybe too soon..."

Raph snorted, hoisting Donnie up onto his back so they could move. "I hope they're ok, but we ain't gonna do'em no good standing here worrying about it. Come on, let's go see what kinda planet we're dealing with here so we can figure out how to reach'em."

"Aye'aye cap'n!" Mikey chirped, jumping to follow his brothers out of the wild, ash-grey wilderness.

* * *

A/N

Yooo!

This is a plot bunny! XD It's been on my mind now for a while and I couldn't help but post, and does actually already have a chapter 2 in progress. I'm hoping working on this will help get me in the mood to work on Mikey's Escape From New York as well. I like this one too, though! I can never get enough Oldest Brother Leo Angst XD (also I like bunnies)

Hope you guys enjoyed :D


	2. Chapter 2

"Raph! Donnie! Mikey!" Leo called, desperately shouting into the dashboard com inside the ship that had been connected to his brothers' air helmets. "Come in! That's _an order!_ " He commanded, his frantic voice quickly deteriorating to desperate panic. "Please, someone respond!" He cried, gripping the sides of the control panel. " ** _Please!_** "

"Leo," April stepped forward, worriedly and firmly putting her hands on the oldest brother's shoulders to gently pull him away from the com.

"No, no, no, no, no." Leo mumbled, shakily walking away only to pace back and forth and put his hands to his head as he thought. They had managed to fight back and scare off their attackers shortly after the incident with the three youngest brothers, but the Ulixes had already sustained considerable damage, leaving them floating uselessly in space until it was fixed. That, however, was the least of everyone's concern, at the moment. Leo babbled to no one in particular, even as he continued pacing. "W-we could take the rest of the space suits and go looking for them. We have to. They'll run out of air. God, what if their helmets shattered! They could have fallen through that planet's atmosphere! Professor, please tell me you have spare helmets!"

When he stopped and turned sharply to Professor Honeycutt for a response, he only got silence and three stares in return. Before he could fly into furious panic, however, April stepped forward, giving him a strange, pointed look.

"Leo, calm down. You're trembling."

Trying to give her a confused reply at first, he instead looked down. He lifted his hands, and found he didn't even have enough control to bend his fingers. When he looked up again, April was gazing at him, understanding on her face. She opened her arms, and Leo accepted the gesture, hesitating before quickly and bashfully wrapping his arms around her shoulders and burying his head, clenching his teary eyes shut.

"There, now. It's gonna be ok. Your brothers are alright. You know they're a tough bunch. They won't go down so easily." April said, her own emotions racing. While she was torn up along with Leo and glad the guarded oldest brother had opened up to the comfort he so badly needed, she also wasn't quite sure what to do. Leo had never looked so helpless or just so absolutely _horrified_ about anything before, and she was worried for the youngest three. What were they supposed to do now?

Fugitoid approached and put his hand on Leo's head, and Leo released April, rubbing his eyes and looking over at the robot. Casey approached the group as well, giving Leo an encouraging look. "Fear not, my friend. I will work on the Ulixes tirelessly until it is functional enough to go after your brothers. I am sure they will be alright until then. There is enough oxygen in the suits to last several days, and even if they were to enter a planet's atmosphere, the composition is different enough from Earth that the damage would not be anywhere near as severe. I believe I remember the planet I saw your brothers drifting towards before we were driven away," He said, going back to the large frontal window to pull up a digital map of the surrounding space and planets, the other three walking closer to look. "Ah! Here it is," Fugitoid exclaimed, pointing a finger at a large, dark planet the map zoomed in on.

"You think they're there?" Casey asked, leaning closer to see.

"I would say it is most likely. Unfortunately, I have very little information about this planet." He said, his eyes momentarily looking sad. "If the Ulixes were still as close to it as we were, it would not be a problem to use the rest of the air helmets to enter the planet and look for your brothers, but we are much too far away – I can't have anyone else flying off into space. But, rest assured, it should not take long to make the repairs so we can go after the three of them. And, as your friend April said," Fugitoid turned back to Leo with happy eyes, "They are a tough bunch."

Casey wrapped an arm around Leo's shoulders, jostling him with a wide grin. "That's right. Besides, they've got that hot-head looking out for'em, after all,"

Still a little jarred, Leo merely nodded, looking up at the map for a moment in silence and several complex emotions swimming in his eyes all at once. He was white-knuckling the seat in front of him, and only April detected the slight tremor still there that told tales more of the hysteric distress hiding just beneath the oldest's expression.

He looked around at the others again, then, a mix of sincerity and urgency on his face. "Thanks you guys. Professor, please show me what I can do to help. I'll do anything it takes, I can help you work on the engine too. I'll work on the com link or even just watch them if that's all that will help."

"Yeah! Us, too!" Casey volunteered. "What can we do to help, Professor?"

With all three looking eagerly at him, the Professor's expression turned happy again for just a second before getting down to business.

"Alright, the most important thing to get done first is..."

.

.

.

"Raaaph, my feet hurt."

Raph groaned, only half-paying attention to his youngest brother's whine as he bitterly and resolutely struggled under the weight of his other brother, Donetello, carrying him on the trek through these dark, aggressive-looking woods, or would-be-woods as Mikey had already decided to call them. He made sure and kept Mikey close beside him, even if the youngest didn't notice, feeling more and more uncomfortable about being here, especially with his little brothers. He glanced back at Donnie, who was too busy staring about the place in awe.

"You really need to keep it down," Raph grumbled at Mikey, walking into the youngest's side to move him around an especially large, thorny plant and elbowing him closer behind himself. "I keep getting the feelin' we really shouldn't be here."

"Oh, and who's being a Leo Jr. now, Mr. Rebel-Pants?" Mikey jeered, seeming totally unfazed and laughing when Raph grimaced at him.

"Mikey, shut up, seriously. We don't know if this place is occupied or who's here."

"I know, I know. But we look like we're in the middle of nowhere, dude. We haven't seen anyone for hours."

"It hasn't been hours," Donnie said, rolling his eyes. "Maybe just one or two..."

"Yeah, and my feet are killing me!" Mikey repeated, laughing instead of whining. "This ground needs some serious raking. And de-rocking. Definitely a lot of bush hogging."

"I swear to God, Mikey, who's the one that's been carryin' somebody on their back the whole way?"

"Sorry." Donnie apologized, making Raph sigh.

"It ain't your fault. Mikey's just whinin' for whinin's sake, ain't got nothin' better to do than humor him."

"That's the truth."

"Hey!"

Raph and Donnie shared a chuckle while the youngest sent them a pout, and crossed his arms. Looking forward again, he mumbled, "Fine then, we'll see what happens next time you guys –"

When their youngest stopped his sentence short, the other two looked back at him in confusion, before immediately snapping their eyes ahead again in a slight panic, looking for another presence and immediately feeling for their weapons out of instinct. It was then they realized – Raph was the only one who still had his weapons with him, though how, it was probably best not to think too hard about. All three had taken their weapons with them while on the trip to repair the Ulixes, so Don's staff and Mikey's nunchucks had surely been blown off into space. The spooked, alarmed look Mikey stared ahead with almost screamed of an unwelcome presence, but when they looked, there was nobody.

Still cautious and on high alert, Raph shoved Mikey further behind him, scanning their surroundings as Donnie did the same. "What is it, Mikey?" He asked quietly.

"I saw eyes." He whispered back. "Maybe it was just an animal but – oh man, it was watching us and ran off when I looked at it. I think it went that way." He nodded in a general direction ahead of them, tightly gripping Raph's arm and staring stonily ahead at the spot he indicated.

Raph scowled, staring ahead and nudging Mikey's arm as he whispered. "Mikey, grab one of my sais and stay behind me. I want you to hold onto my arm so I know you're with me, alright? Do _not_ let go."

Mikey nodded, quickly doing as told and gulping when Raph did, indeed, cautiously start progressing forward, all senses alert and eyes sharp, resembling their oldest's in the alert, dangerous way they did sometimes.

Donnie remained deathly silent as well as they continued forward into the messy terrain, ducking closer to Raph to avoid branches they crept through. They continued this way for a little while, quietly walking for about fifteen or twenty minutes before the forest started to thin out a little, becoming more sparse in the dark, uneven landscape.

It wasn't until then that the brothers finally started to think the thing was definitely gone, but it only came as an unspoken, uneasy feeling in their guts that crawled under their skin and made them really wish they could sink into the ground and disappear. Finally Mikey spoke up to his older brother again, his voice just a timid whisper as he held tightly to his protective older brother's arm. "Raph, I don't like this place."

"I know Mike. I don't either." Raph mumbled, his voice low and grumbly, but unconsciously warm and comforting at the same time in the way only his could be, and it reassured the younger two to hear it, both of them looking at each other. They were so glad that, if they had to be stuck here, at least Raph was there so they could feel safe, no matter what happened. Without him, Donnie wondered how much progress he and Mikey would actually even dare to make through this place at all.

But it didn't seem like they were finding much, regardless. After a bit more walking, and Raph's progression was a lot less hunt-like and a lot more just extra cautious and light-footed, Donnie spoke up, too. "Whatever that thing was, I don't think we're gonna find it again anytime soon. I wonder how it got away that fast." He said, keeping his own voice low and inside the three's small, secret bubble of quiet communication.

A shiver went down the spine of the other two; not managing to find the maybe-animal-maybe-person was far worse than finding it. Donnie immediately got a heavy sensation of being watched, shrinking slightly against Raph's shell, and Mikey hugged Raph's arm tightly against himself, looking around and, if you looked at his face, pretty visibly spooked. He whimpered something that just ever so faintly sounded to Donnie like, "I wanna go home," but it was hard to tell, being too quiet for even Raph to hear.

Sensing the anxiety from his siblings, Raph turned his head to glance at them from the side. "Well, we'll just keep goin' until we find something like civilization, or at least get out of these dang woods, anyway. It's like anywhere on Earth – like if we just landed in the middle of a reserve, or somethin' like that, right? 'Course it would take a little while to walk all the way out. Even if these people live in a tree, it'll be something. If we keep goin', we gotta find something."

"Right," Donnie said, hugging his arms a little more snuggly around Raph's neck. But they weren't really used to woods on earth, either.

* * *

It was almost another hour of walking later when the woods finally seemed to end and a lumpy landscape of small hills stretched out before them instead, full of dry grass, blackened and covered over in a mess of muddy leaves and shriveled-up foliage, long-dead trees hanging over as if to warn away trespassers. It was here that Raph finally stopped to rest, letting Donnie down with a grunt and sitting on the ground with a _thud._

Donnie immediately turned to him in concern, stooping down to his older brother, Mikey worriedly standing close by. "Are you ok Raph?"

"'S nothin'." Raph grumbled, waving off his concern with a grumpy gesture but putting a hand to his shoulder with a very tense grimace of pain on his face being restrained with a lot of effort, regardless.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you carry me that far, your shoulder's gotta be worse now. Let me –"

"Don't worry 'bout it," Raph pushed Donnie's outstretched hand away. "I said it's nothin'. My shoulder ain't as bad as your ankle. An' I had your weight on my other side anyway –"

"Don't even give me any of that!" Donnie snapped, quickly falling into Annoyed Doctor Mode, and Raph relented to Donnie's careful inspection with a groan and an eye roll. "You didn't let me get a good look at it the first time, so there's no telling what shape it's in. You shouldn't carry anyone anymore, and as soon as I find something, we're slinging your arm."

"Tch. Can you even walk, then?" Raph challenged, irritation but mostly an underlying concern in his eyes to back the question.

"Of...of course I can." Donnie hesitated, pausing before gingerly getting back to his feet. "See? Now stop whining and –"

"You're still leanin'."

"So?! It still hurts, obviously!" Donnie defended, giving Raph a pout, but when he got a deadpan, unamused expression right back, he sighed, deflating a little. "Fine."

Being extra careful at first, Donnie sucked in a breath, and hobbled around in a circle, clearly trying to prove he could walk just fine if he had to, but couldn't hide anything under Raph's scrutinizing gaze. Seeming more frustrated after walking the circle, Donnie stopped and turned back to give a frustrated groan and threw his arms a little. "My _ankle_ is not the important thing here, it will _heal._ If you keep pushing your shoulder, you're gonna have _way_ worse problem than me, so stop acting like you don't know that!"

Raph's expression didn't shift much from Unamused. "Whatever, just chill. I'll let you look at my shoulder if you'll at least let me support you, ok?"

Sighing, Donnie finally kneeled back down to his brother and gingerly put his hands to his shoulder. "Fine, now sit still."

Watching his brothers for a moment with worry, as Donnie lightly felt about Raph's shoulder and Raph winced at the touch, but obeyed mumbled commands to move his arm in different ways without complaint, Mikey put a finger to his mouth. "I'm sorry...I can't help. I'd take a turn carrying you Donnie, but...my side..."

Both brothers immediately paused what they were doing for a moment to send him admonishing looks. "Don't." They simultaneously started, and paused to look at each other with a bit of confusion.

Mikey's mouth twisted with an unsatisfied pout. "I really do wanna help, you guys shouldn't have to do everything. I know I'm injured but you guys are too, and–"

"Mikey, for cryin' out loud, you'd offer to carry Donnie if you had a pike drilled through your own foot." Raph scolded. "There ain't nothin' you gotta apologize for kid, you're doing everything you need to and there ain't nothin' more I'd have you do. I'd rather carry Donnie with a _slightly bruised shoulder –_ " He said this part with a swing of the head back in Donnie's direction and a clear, long-suffering glare, to which he got an equally long-suffering, glare-ish eye-roll back –"than make him walk on a bad foot." He sent Mikey a grin, slightly amused and proud. "You're helping enough already just as it is."

"He's right," Donnie added, still checking out Raph's shoulder. "I'm not gonna allow you to push yourself, either. Raph and I most likely just have sprains, but I'm not gonna be sure how bad we really are until we get back to the Ulixes, and considering the area of damage I'm mostly concerned about your side more than Raph's or my injuries."

Mikey scoffed lightly at this, but looking up to see his brother's faces again, he was a little startled to see them looking at him so seriously all of a sudden. He hadn't known how worried his older brothers had actually been about his side, or that they just hadn't been talking about it. Why were they being so silly? It wasn't even that bad. Surely he'd had worse injuries than this before, after all.

"And I still need to check on it too, by the way. Anyway, I can lean on you whenever Raph gets tired until it feels better." He ignored Raph's obvious dramatic scoff about not giving himself long enough to heal. "Besides..." And now Donnie gave Mikey a mischievous grin that he couldn't help be immediately suspicious about, "even if neither of us were injured, you couldn't carry me anyway."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!" Mikey asked indignantly, taken aback by his brother's chuckles. "I could too!" He pouted, but by the way they just laughed to each other, a warmth on their faces that they just couldn't contain, he didn't think they believed him.

"Hmph...fine then, let'em think what they want." Mikey mumbled to himself, crossing his arms and doing his best Frustrated Pout face, turning and sitting next to a shriveled-up tree a few feet away with his back turned to them, using every ounce of attitude he could muster.

"Alright, alright, enough of this." Raph said, waving Donnie's fussing off and getting back to his feet. "Let's find some civilization, shall we? I'm kinda thirsty." Ignoring Donnie's protests and slinging him up over his good shoulder like a sack of potatoes, getting even more and much louder protests, Raph walked forward toward the plains ahead of them, getting a disgruntled squawk when he tugged Mikey back by the bandana tails as he passed.

Mikey smiled at the sidelong, playful and mischievous grin so full of warmth that his older brother sent back, the one he always gave so easily, and bounded after him towards the canyon-like landscape not far off past the small hills.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time the group of three made their way past the plains, all were seriously starting to feel the effects of walking so far in their condition. Raph had put Donnie back down soon after they'd started out to instead have him lean on his good shoulder as they walked, and by the time they entered the dark canyon-like area, everybody had to stop for another break, sweating and hurting.

Raph looked up into the smog-covered sky of this dark, spooky planet with a scowl, sitting against a bowed and shriveled tree. If there was no life here, he wouldn't be surprised – most of the foliage was either dead or looked like it wanted to be, after all. The thing Mikey saw in the woods, though, had him on this constant edge that was making him jerk at any new noise and think he was seeing things at the edges of his vision. With his little brothers around, he was increasingly paranoid of the potential dangers about and became antsier the farther they wandered from him. This didn't happen often though, as both little brothers were also clearly spooked and as curious as they were about the place, never went far. Raph and Mikey had been holding hands for a large part of the walk over to this location just so Raph could be sure he was with him, and with the horrifying nature of this planet and the sense of danger all three were picking up, the youngest didn't mind too much, and neither even took the time to joke about it. Mikey seemed to feel better for it anyway, comically looking forward again and coming closer to walk properly by his side every time he heard a weird noise. Raph sent a silent prayer up into the sky, willing it to break through the smoky darkness moving like clouds, to his family still in space – _I hope you guys are ok. We're down here. Please, find us soon. Leo..._

"Hey." Donnie walked up beside him, casually interrupting his train of thought with a wondering look on his face, noticing the sentimental one on Raph's. He dropped down beside him and leaned back, his bad leg stretched out. "What are you thinking?"

They were stopped somewhere near the base of the canyon, by some rotted trees. Mikey had walked around a little after resting with the other two, curiosity even winning over the bad vibes of his surroundings and his sore side. Raph and Donnie had jointly decided earlier that they should look for any creeks or rivers in the canyon, and after they rested a bit the three were off to start that search. Raph looked at Donnie peering at him, Mikey standing on his tiptoes to try to see into the distance for water in the background ahead of them.

Raph let out a casual huff. "I'm thinkin' I wish I knew what Mikey saw in the woods." He said, Donnie's face grimacing slightly in unnerved agreement. "You haven't seen anything out-a'-the-ordinary, or you know, _person-like_ , have'ya?"

Donnie just shook his head, turning his head forward again and looking down at his feet. "I've been on the lookout ever since that sighting, but it doesn't seem like there's anything around. I haven't even sensed anything."

"Me 'neither." Raph agreed, and both fell quiet for a minute, lost in thought.

Donnie glanced over at Raph, looking over his profiled expression. He had a casual half-scowl that was part frustration, part worry, staring down at his hands and his mind a hundred miles away. Donnie grinned – that expression looked similar, somehow. Older brothers could be so danged serious with themselves.

"So," Donnie started, looking away again as Raph looked at him, "Say we don't find any civilization, which it doesn't feel like we will. Or if we do, they have no technology that I can try to contact the Ulixes with."

Raph looked at Donnie expectantly, guessing the topic this was about.

"We should also be on the lookout for any material we can collect to make a flare." Donnie suggested, looking at Raph for his opinion. "I'm not sure if Professor Honeycutt knew the location where they lost us at, but if they come close, it would help. And even better, say we do happen to find any lifeforms here, or a living area of any kind. If they've collected some of the right materials, I could try to construct a basic homing beacon, and invert it so it'll send a message to any spacecraft that can pick it up. It would be short-range, but even that would be better than a flare."

"I think you've got the right idea," Raph agreed, grinning at his little brother. "Gettin' lost ain't even possible with you around, Donnie." Raph gave his shoulder a light push, both sharing a laugh.

"Ah–!"

Both brothers were suddenly and immediately on high-alert from the startled surprise of their baby brother several feet away – too far away. He was galloping over the terrain back to the couple before Raph had the chance to call him, however, and came in close to their protective arms where they grabbed and checked him over for any new injuries before he could babble out what had surprised him, hands around his shell to keep him close.

"What happened?" Raph looked at Mikey squarely, eyes full of seriousness and intensity on his little brother as the smaller looked back in alarm.

"Th-there's something coming," He said, already trying to push the two towards a large rock formation to hide. "I can't tell what it is."

"Tch–!" Looking out into the distance with a scowl, Raph quickly corralled both little brothers behind the rocks, peering around it in search of unwelcome company. Sure enough, a small group of black-looking humanoid creatures were approaching their area. What _were_ they? As Raph watched them come closer, he became more and more horrified.

There were four of them. The creatures were totally coated in some kind of black substance that dripped from their bodies, and they were _enormous_ , maybe triple the height of Donatello. They were almost human-like in shape, but skinny and mangled and misshapen and animal-like in the way they traveled on all-fours with their long arms, and their joints – _oh,_ he was gonna have nightmares. Raph felt the blood drain from his face as he shrank back further behind the protective barrier hiding them, hoping his little brothers couldn't see the terror on his face. Their joints did all sorts of things Raph didn't think they were supposed to, snapping this way and that as they ran, heads twitching about, the creatures howling horribly through the canyon in pain or crazed delusion like animals possessed. Their heads were long and feature-less, covered in the same inky substance, and their mouths opened impossibly long like fanged demons when they whaled.

Hearing quiet gasps of terror underneath him, he realized with horror that his two little brothers were peeking around the rock formation as well, watching the monsters. Raph grabbed both of them in his arms in one swoop and quickly backed further behind their hiding place, almost stumbling. Panting, he forced his back against the rock in a panic, drawing both sais. Protectively crushing his little brothers against him with the terrified strength of steel, weapons at the ready, he prayed for the second time that day. Both little brothers only looked up at Raph with wide, fearful eyes and Raph mouthed the words, " _Don't, make, a sound_ ".

The group remained stone-still and silent as they listened to the monsters come right up into the area where they had just been, galloping and twisting their heads and howling, when suddenly they paused. The three behind the rock tensed further, both little brothers pressing even further into the older as he squeezed them and raised his shoulders, looking tensely to the side and none daring to breathe.

The hunched monsters moved slowly about the area, behaving different from before. Still twitching and growling and spastically howling in what could've been frustration, they now sniffed the ground on all-fours, when Donnie suddenly realized they had caught a whiff of the group's scent. They were _hunting._

Donnie poked Raph to get his attention, and with eyes even wider and more fearful than before, he pointed at his own mouth, getting a similar response from the other two.

 _They're looking for food._

The monsters walked far enough into the area that the group could see them from around the rock, and they pressed as hard into it as they could, peeking to the side to watch the things.

Finally, one gave a loud roar, making the three twitch violently and dig in as close to each other as possible, cowering away from the things. Its voice was so awful, as if it were filled with all the whaling of a hundred screeching humans and a thousand demons who'd lost their minds. And then – an animal streaked across the clearing where the monster stood!

The three hiding behind the rock made the smallest of gasps. They hadn't seen a single animal since they'd been here; it was just a simple thing that could've been some version of a rabbit, but it was killed just as quickly as they saw it. The whole situation escalated so quickly there was barely time for them to register it.

The monster that had roared killed the animal, instantly and hungrily ripping into it to devour. The three other monsters present jumped in to take a bite but the first one jerked it away for itself – its little body was in hundreds of pieces in an instant. The three of them almost yelped when a loud _crash_ soon followed, and they soon realized one of the creatures had taken a large boulder in its mouth and _thrown_ it at one of the others in the fight, but the other simply smashed through it with its forehead, seemingly unfazed and snapping at the attacker.

The fight over the meat escalated until it wasn't clear if it had been eaten already or simply destroyed, because the three monsters that had missed out on the meal were now savagely attacking the fourth. Violent became deadly very quickly as the three overpowered the one, and it was at this point Raph looked away, holding his brothers so close and covering their eyes with his hands. The shadows Raph bitterly watched against the canyon wall across from them, the noise and the gore that splashed around were the only indications they had of what happened to the fourth creature, and the sounds of more devouring quickly followed. Mikey lurched a little and covered his mouth, and both brothers comfortingly held him tight and rubbed his back as he became still and silent again. There was no way any of the three would allow their location to be made known now.

Thankfully, it wasn't too long after this that the three creatures left seemed to be satisfied, and giving one whale of victory or territorial domination, they left the scene just as they came.

The three huddled behind the rocks waited for quite a while still before they dared to come back out. The already-dark world was darkened a bit further in what was probably dusk by now, and as soon as everyone was absolutely sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that nothing else was going to come, Mikey started crying.

Everyone was still shaking by this point. Mikey dropped his head against Raph's good shoulder and put his hands to his face, making small whimpers, and Donnie hid his face under his own hand, his own racing emotions threatening to get the better of him at any second, too. Raph squeezed them both tight and dug his muzzle down between their faces, squeezing his eyes shut as tight as he could to hold back his own tears.

Eventually, they found enough control of themselves again to move out from behind the rocks, Raph putting away his weapons, and the sight of the carnage there made them even more upset. Mikey whaled and hid in Raph's chest, Raph and Donnie looking on in horror. The creature's body was absolutely demolished. Stuff – stuff was everywhere. Raph similarly pulled Donnie in to break his gaze away from the sight, and the younger brother shuddered, wrapping his arms around the others in search of support. Raph held them closer than anything in the whole world and looked on at the scene, worried – for one of the few, genuinely helpless moments in his life – about how they were gonna get through this one.

After what just happened, the demanding need to find a safe place for the night was the only thing that convinced Raph that despite the overwhelming urge to just dig a hole and wait until the others were able to find them and come to their rescue, they had to keep moving forward.

He took a deep breath and sighed, part to try and calm himself, and part to hopefully soothe the other two. He looked down at his younger siblings cooped up in his arms, and rubbed the backs of their shells.

"...We've gotta find shelter for the night." He said simply, voice low and as calming as he could possibly make it. All at once, he wished Leo were here just to say what he was trying to. Their oldest brother had always somehow had these magical soothing powers, always able to dash his little brothers' worst fears with his warm, soothing voice to oblivion. "I know it's scary, but the way things are, sleepin' in the open at night ain't an option. We'll be safer once we find a place for tonight."

Donnie sighed, and looked over at Mikey, whose crying had de-escalated back to whimpers and was rubbing his tightly-clenched eyes, horribly afraid of opening them and seeing the dripping slaughter behind him – a phobia the three all admittedly shared. With one last deep breath to encourage himself, Raph anchored Donnie's arms around his good shoulder and drew Mikey into his side, who kept his head low and wrapped his arms tight around the older's middle, and together they went in search of a safer place.

* * *

Despite the land growing ever-darker as night approached, the three managed to find a small, very shallow creek just an hour away from where they were, and oh, what a blessed thing it was. They all laid flat on the ground to submerge themselves in it before quickly finding a rock bowl-shaped enough to collect some in and boil it once Donnie was able to start a fire, and while they boiled the water Mikey found the smallest of groves in the ground under the rock face of a canyon wall just feet away, apparently the previous home of some animal and just big enough for the three to squeeze into – which none had complaints about, as chilly as it was getting. While they were already used to the cool New York City air, the natural temperature of this planet was on the chillier side and the constant exposure was starting to get to them. And of course, the darker it got, the further the thermometer dropped.

As soon as they'd all gotten enough to drink, the three of them crawled into the little space in the ground dug into the canyon wall, Donnie taking the concave rock with him to keep until he could find a way to carry it more conveniently. Hidden nicely by a bit of foliage and snuggled up to each other, they laid still for a little while as they tried to settle their nerves and chase away the cold.

Night quickly fell as they rested, quite awake, but a little calmer now that they felt a bit safer from this terrible world they'd found themselves in. All their wounds were aching badly after so much strain and jostling today, and the most each could manage was to find some position that they could bear as they rested against each other, so Raph had to lay his weight on his good shoulder with the other two snuggled in close. All were hungry and sore for the ones they missed in space, but alive; and as long as they could keep that last one the same, each had hope it was going to be alright.

Mikey and Donnie seemed to be preoccupied listening to all the new night sounds around them which, all things considered, were a bit more comforting than their other experiences of this planet so far, and assured they were lulling off, heads tucked snuggly and resting underneath his, Raph watched the smoggy sky through the opening of their little space, where he could actually see occasional stars peek through the black sheet above.

" _I wonder if the others are ok."_ Raph thought, and gave a small sigh. _"I wish we could'a had our cell phones with us, or that they even worked in space. It would make everything so much easier..."_

Mikey shifted his head a little. "Raphie?" He mumbled in a quiet, tired voice. The way Donnie shifted, too, it was clear he was also still awake.

"Mm." Raph quietly mumbled back.

"Is your shoulder ok after everything?"

Raph grinned, giving his baby brother's muzzle a teasing poke. "It's fine. Don't you worry."

Mikey hummed in response, Raph not knowing if he accepted that or not, but knowing he wouldn't say. "Donnie, how's your foot?"

Donnie chuckled. "I'll live. How's your side?"

Again, Mikey hummed in response, but a little more perturbed than before, and when it seemed he wouldn't give a response to his own question, he answered, "I'm ok. Just hurts I guess."

The three were silent for a little longer after this, contemplating different things, and after a little while Mikey spoke up again.

"How are we gonna make it back?"

There was a short pause after this question. Donnie shifted to more clearly see the other two, and shared a glance with Raph. Gently rubbing Mikey's shoulder, Donnie answered sleepily. "If we actually manage to find any living sites here, I wanted to see if they had the right materials to make a beacon-like device to hopefully contact the others. But," He continued on quietly, "I'm not sure that we will. I might be able to make one anyway, if we can find the materials, but...you know."

Mikey nodded silently in understanding – this place may or may not have what Donnie needed. He knew his smart brother would figure out the next best thing regardless, but he worried how many options they really had.

"Our best bet," Raph said, holding them both firmly, "Is to wait for the others to come an' find us here. And don't you guys even act like you don't know – mountains will be moved before the mountains even dream of tryin' to pose a threat."

The younger two giggled in agreement.

"So while we wait, we've gotta make sure to be careful an' stay low. This ain't the sort of place I really wanna test my steel against, and you guys know I'm serious if that's comin' from me." Another couple of grins in agreement. "We'll keep movin' and try to find some food and camps or anything like that, and if Donnie sees something he can use, we'll try to get that too." His face dropped and his voice became more serious for a moment as he talked to them, and they listened intently. "I don't want neither of you wanderin' away or leaving my sight, you hear me? Stay _close_ to me and if I say jump, jump. We're gonna have to keep hidden as much as possible, and for now we've only got my sais."

The three fell back to silence for another few moments in resignation of this, and for a little while, the night creatures outside were all that could be heard. Donnie gave a little sigh and snuggled the two of them in closer to Raph, clearly lulling off again in the warmth and safety of his surroundings. Mikey nestled down deeper between the two of them, and in the way he wrapped a hand over Donnie's arm strewn over him and buried his clenched eyes into Raph's neck, they felt something was wrong, and so Donnie's face was nestled in closer to his in concern and Raph's chin protectively resting over his head when he quietly spoke up again.

"What if we see the monsters again?"

Raph paused at the question, and after a moment looked over at Donnie, who glanced back in worry and as much as he tried to hide it, a fear that he couldn't keep out of his face. Sighing, Raph squeezed them tight, nuzzling both their heads with his and giving each a kiss on the forehead, drawing a sleepy yawn out of both of them.

"Then stay close to me," He mumbled warmly, tiredly. "We'll be alright."

The group finally started to lose the battle to sleep once more, and were tightly nestled in with one another when Donnie's voice came up one more time, quietly asking a half-asleep question from the ever-curious parts of his mind. "Oh, Mikey, I was wondering. I noticed back there...those things didn't really have eyes."

Mikey made a small nodding movement, eyes closed and clearly preferring to go to sleep rather than talk about the monsters. "Mm-hmm." He sleepily mumbled in agreement, wrapping both arms around Donnie's and snuggling it to him.

"But when we were in the woods, didn't you say you saw something staring at us?"

Taking an extra second for his tired brain to process this connection, Mikey then hummed in realization, mumbling his reply before falling asleep. "Oh, you're right. It had beady red eyes..."

* * *

A/N: Mikey, always there to ask the important questions haha

IT'S 5:45AM AND I HAVE WORK AT 12 AND I REGRET NOTHINGGGG

Also thanks so much for all the favs and reviews! I read each one and I'm super excited to see new ones pop up. I'm glad you guys are enjoying this and I will definitely be updating again before long :)


	4. Chapter 4

Casey expertly flipped the pancake that didn't really need flipping, hot out of Professor Honeycutt's virtual food-hologram-creator machine, poured on the syrup and took it with him to the middle of the main room to sit in his designated pod. Setting it on a mini-desk inside, he left his breakfast to the side as he went over some papers and maps detailing the world where they'd lost part of their team.

He was in charge of learning the nature of the planet based on the information the Professor had provided him, and strategizing their rout of travel and method of infiltration as soon as the rescue mission was possible. And based on the rate things were going, that shouldn't be more than a day or two longer.

The Professor, Leo and April were all working furiously to make every repair necessary to launch the ship back toward the planet, and as far as he could tell, they were already halfway done. On top of the engine damage Donnie had been working on when _it_ happened – which, like he had said when _it_ happened, was a quick fix – their enemies had all but destroyed one of the Ulixes' drive motors, which was the Professor's main problem now that April had already fixed the original engine wire damage.

Leo...

He hadn't been talking much, this whole time – but he didn't really need to anyway, so maybe that's why he hadn't been. It made perfect sense to Casey, actually. It was already so clear what he was feeling, in the way his hands still tremored ever so slightly now and then as he worked on the destroyed drive motor with the Professor, in the way he always seemed so lost all the time now that he hardly knew how to eat anymore – in the way that no matter what his expression did, it just seemed to slide over the surface of this deep _pain_ never left his features, and these deep wrinkles of _worry_ that creased on his forehead and couldn't seem to leave. The way the circles under his eyes looked a little darker this morning than they had yesterday. And the others had been giving him all the support in the world, because they just _knew_ , and Casey and April were anxious for the little missing pieces of their family, too – and April was the one who pulled Leo out of the broken drive motor last night, covered in a dark oil-based chemical and exhausted to the bone, and made him eat dinner, even if he couldn't seem to focus well enough to know what he was eating. And Leo knew the kind of state he was in. How could he _not,_ he was so worried, and how had this happened to his three precious baby brothers? But he didn't know how to talk about it and Casey wasn't totally sure he'd want to if he tried, and so he didn't, instead accepting the others' support and trusting in everyone when they so affectionately showed him that it was ok, they understood. And that was the most he could seem to manage to do.

And Casey was doing a little bit of everything, going in to meet the others at the motor of the Ulixes when his strength was needed and now, making plans for their after-recovery mission so they could launch out as soon as physically possible.

He only hoped the other three could hold on until then.

They had all of the Ulixes' communication devices on their highest sensitivity settings, scouring for any and every sign or semblance of the others possible, waiting, just in case. All of them were dying with frustration and worry that none of the others had anything they could contact the Ulixes back with, since the helmets were previously supposed to handle that just fine for everybody, but the three were much too far out of range now, and this – this just wasn't supposed to happen. If they still had the things with them, at all. If they just knew they were ok, things would be so much easier, so much less _stressful_. The whole battle here would already be won, things would already be ok, the most important things.

 _"Damn it all."_ Casey thought. _"If I find out any of the three of you aren't ok..."_

He rested his head in his hand and made a despondent sigh, glancing at his un-touched pancakes. They'd gone cold while he was working.

.

.

.

"Mmmhg."

Raph groaned sleepily, the weight of the two forms still tucked snuggly into his good side easing the snap of anxiety that instinctively came to him on awakening. The next thing he felt was the sharp pain in his bad shoulder, stiff and clearly out of order for a good several days.

 _"Ow."_

Looking down at his two little brothers, still sleeping soundly, he couldn't help but make a pitiful expression. Even with easy, relaxed faces in sleep, the two were dug as deeply into Raph and one another as they could possibly get, huddled down in an instinctual reaction from this hostile planet that made them feel hunted and unsafe at all times; where sleep was just a fitful shut-eye that anything could wake you up from. Raph sighed, squeezing the two a little closer to himself, and they gently nestled their heads into him in response. The sooner they all got out of this nightmare place, the better.

With a grumble coming from his stomach, he decided to try and get a head start on the hunt for food, and moved his little brothers off of him as gently as a couple of babies. Climbing out of the little den, he started looking around for a good hunting place right away; he refused to go so far as to let their tiny shelter leave his sight. The only animal they'd seen on this planet so far had been destroyed right in front of them in seconds, but maybe if he could find some foliage that hadn't died yet, they could test to see which ones were edible –

" _AAaah!_ "

Heart leaping into his throat, Raph was hands-and-knees halfway back through the burrow in half a second, every nerve in his body on fire with panic. About 16 emotions flew through the next moment at once, before everything came to a standstill – Donnie was the one who had woken up with a scream, and now had his hands over his mouth from the noise he'd made while trying to figure out what was going on and calm his furiously pounding heart. Mikey had woken up immediately, and was stalk-straight and wide-eyed, thrown backwards and shivering after being startled awake so badly with such a loud noise, and Raph was trying to process that everybody was ok and make himself breathe again, but all quickly came to a dead silence and ceased to move as they listened intensely to their surroundings for a moment of horror.

After listening to the normal nature sounds around them and everybody was absolutely sure that nothing was coming, Raph let out the smallest, almost inaudible sigh and turned to Donnie, placing a firm hand on his head.

"Don, I don't know whether to ask'ya what's wrong or smack'ya." He whispered, admonishing.

"I'm sorry," Donnie whispered back, ducking his head down and clenching his eyes in bashful anxiety, still a little shaken. "I don't know what – I'm sorry."

Suddenly, pulling him in by his hand on the back of his head, Raph trapped Donnie in a strong hug, surprising both little brothers.

"Just as long as you're ok." He whispered, voice full of relief, and he didn't care if either of them thought he was acting weird as he squeezed Donnie a little tighter, but the way his little brother seemed to finally calm down and Mikey only grinned as he watched them, somehow feeling safer himself without having anything to do with it, he didn't think they cared much, either.

"Nightmare?" Raph finally asked, letting Donnie go, and he got a nervous nod back.

"I can't help it...those things yesterday were just..." Donnie shook his head, apparently suddenly thinking he sounded stupid. "Well, you know. I couldn't get them out of my head."

"Me 'neither." Mikey said, looking at them both. "I can't believe they actually..."

The three sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, looking around at each other as they remembered the scene from yesterday.

"...What do you think they are? We've never seen anything much like those things before, for all the places we've been." Mikey continued, eyes wide with curiosity and his voice small and haunted, and he shivered uncomfortably. "But those are..."

"No idea, and don't really care to find out." Raph said, hiking himself up onto his knees again to crawl back out of the small den, helping the other two climb out, as well. "The most important thing is that we keep away from'em, 'cause whatever they are, they ain't something we need to be studyin' up close. Let's find some food and then figure out where to get some electro-doo-dads for Donnie."

Sighing hopelessly at the terminology, Donnie slumped while Mikey eagerly saluted. "Yes sir!"

.

.

Into the morning hours that they hunted, the food mission very quickly degenerated and became increasingly unsuccessful, and the more this became apparent, the more foreboding the three became about the state of their situation and the new outlook this provided it; and their hunt about the ever-gloomy, canyon-type landscape – where the closest things resembling life were the tiny bugs making all the strange nature sounds and the occasional elusive bird, both of which the three agreed they could try to eat if nothing else, but they had to actually find enough bugs that it was worth it and wait until they could build a slingshot for the birds – one of which Mikey was in the process of doing as they walked along. Raph still had his sais, but –

"Don't throw those around," Donnie had said. "We can't afford to lose them."

Donnie had found a walking stick soon after they began trekking about, but was still limping badly. It was all Raph could do to keep focused on the task at hand instead of offering Donnie support again, but as the situation became more desperate, they began to feel the need to stop entirely to re-strategize, when –

"Finished!"

Turning back to the youngest brother, Mikey held up the hand-made slingshot proudly, a huge smile on his face. "Now we can try to get a bird! Gimme one second." Picking up a rock, he fastened it to the knotted pocket in the vine he'd tied on, and started swirling it around as he looked about anxiously. "Now, where's..."

All three looked around, only to find the typically vacant landscape empty as ever.

Donnie sent Mikey a sympathetic grin as the youngest brother slumped in defeat. "Don't worry, Mikey. Next time I spot one, I'll let you know."

"...Ok." Arming his belt with the stick in one definitive movement, Mikey strode forward. "Hey you guys, we've been walking for a while. I was thinking, should we try to get to the top of the canyon and look to see what kind of areas we can spot?"

The other two stopped and looked at each other to consider this, before turning back to Mikey. "That's a good idea, little bro. Whatever looks most promising, we'll head that way." Raph said, giving him a grin.

Sending a big smile back, Mikey turned on his heel and all but skipped down the path they were on, toward an incline nearby. Raph and Donnie shared a curious look.

"He's got _way_ too much energy for someone with a bad side." Raph grunted as they went to follow the youngest, and Donnie laughed.

"Oh, don't even try pretending to be all grumpy." Face softening, Donnie continued in a quieter voice, and Raph couldn't help the way his own expression probably softened, too – "Mikey would eat a bucket of roaches before he'd let anything get us down."

Raph grinned slightly, looking ahead at their eager little brother, running to reach the top of the canyon wall and looking over the edges at the new things he could see – even if it pulled at his anxiety a little that he was running just a bit _too_ far, but at some point he had to give his younger brothers space to move a little, or he'd _never_ hear the end of their teasing.

Chuckling, Raph looked back over at the second youngest after a moment and continued, "...So what exactly do you need to make an inverted-tracking-doo-hickey?"

"Well, it's probably gonna be more of a question of what I can make do with _instead._ " Donnie replied, expression a little more serious now. "And I don't know what's here. But I really need a metal or element that can transmit electro-magnetic waves well, and magnetic-compatible materials to build a small computer with."

" _Dang,_ " Raph took an over-dramatic step away from his little brother as they were walking and gave him a once-over, to which he received back a major Eye-Roll. "Build up a computer from _scratch?_ Like, from dirt and lightning and crap?"

"Oh, Raph, it wouldn't be a computer like my old laptop." Donnie exaggeratively sighed. "Think wayy smaller, like memory-chip size, and then think cave-man simple. That's all I need to send a signal through – it's radio-wave science, basic as rocks. It would be simple, we would need a power source, it would have no information except where it was coming from and I won't know the range it would have until the material was in front of me. But being something that somebody was already looking for, it could make all the difference."

Raph smiled. "Pretty impressive, D." He crossed his arms in a whimsical way, before grinning mischievously. "Well, while you're busy with that, I guess I'll make you a crutch."

Donnie's little grin quickly turned into a scowl. "Raph, it's _not_ that bad."

"I can see that, by the way Mikey's probably growing a beard waiting on us."

"Oh, you're so confident for someone with a wrecked shoulder."

"Listen, you..."

The two's bickering slowly came to a stop when they realized they'd reached their youngest brother at the top of the canyon wall, who was looking out into the distance without saying a word, without so much as sparing them a glance. When the other two looked, as well, they saw why.

After a moment, Mikey mumbled, "What an awful place." And whether he was really even aware he said it or not, the others couldn't help but agree.

The world was just as dark as they'd first seen when they woke up in the woods, and from this point of view, somehow, it seemed even worse. The whole landscape was so rough and volatile, and almost everything was dead. The canyon went on a little bit longer before it turned back to forestland riddled with blackened and bowed-over trees, and in the farthest distance they could see, edging the horizon, there seemed to be areas where the forest ended again and the landscape perhaps turned into something dry and desert-like, with a mountain just barely visible beyond that, but the smog choked out the rest. The dark sky seemed to change a little bit in that area and was reflecting a deep red, but they dared not try to guess what for. There were no signs of any animals of any kind throughout the whole landscape, and way up here where the eery noises from the woods reached them all at once, they realized how strange and discordant an even _agitated_ the very creatures of the woods sounded, even as unassociated with the sounds as the three already were. Besides this, out of the two very distant places within the forest they could see that held any semblance of life, well –

"I can hear them." Donnie whispered, and the other two nodded. A clear, animal-like growl emitted from one of the patches of drying life from the wilderness ahead, and it sent a shiver of terror straight down their spines; to the point that, even on top of the tall canyon wall, they suddenly felt unsafe and sat down just to be closer to the ground.

Looking out at this place, this horrible, nightmarish place that made all three of them wish they could run home and hide in their father's arms, or just as well, back to the spaceship and in someone else's, a sigh of despair wrenched itself from Raph's desperate efforts to keep it in, and he put his hands on both little brothers' heads when they scooted closer.

And none could find a response to give when Donnie spoke up in a small voice, "I wanna go back to the Ulixes."

As they observed the place a little longer, Raph thought to himself, trying to decide what to do. Clearly, there were two areas in particular that had any chance whatsoever of finding even half of what they needed, but the risks associated with that were obvious. From all he gathered yesterday, those tall black monsters had an inhuman strength that surpassed even their own size and apparent capabilities, they were violent past the point of loyalty to even their own kind or survival, and for all he could tell, were _out of their minds._ If Leo were here, he was a hundred percent certain even their leader would have kept his team away from those things at all costs. If he had any control over the matter whatsoever, Raph wouldn't let one his precious little brothers within the same galaxy space as those monsters _ever_ again, but as the situation was, if they didn't want to starve to death, going into one of those little death traps may be their only chance of survival.

But, he wouldn't go within miles of the place if either of his little brothers didn't want to. So, wrapping his arms around their shoulders, he turned to them, seriousness and purpose on his face.

"I'm gonna suggest somethin' that both of you probably don't wanna hear," Raph started, his voice quieter and even gentle, and the two of them watched him wide-eyed, listening intently and fearful for facts they didn't want to face. "And the way I see it, we have about three options. But if there's even a _glimmer_ of life or resources down there where those – those _demons_ are, it might be the best chance we got." Pausing, Raph gave them a moment to process this, because the two didn't seem to react much to this, in what he couldn't tell to be acceptance or just denial. "Now, I ain't saying we _have_ to do anything; this has got to be a group decision, and if you guys don't want anything'ta do with those areas, you can bet I'll protect you guys from'em like the devil lives there himself. We're all still injured and in bad shape, and the only thing we need to be doing is using every inch of stealth sensei taught us to grab what we need and get out. But if it turns out to be something we can't handle, I'll be damned if I'm gonna drag you guys in there. We can still move further and see what else we can find, but based on the state of things, we gotta decide where to go, and really make an effort not to burn out before we get there, 'cause we're gonna need to preserve all the energy we can. We can also wait. I don't know if there are really any safe places to hide, and we'd have to find one. But since we got water, we can wait several days for the others'ta come and find us before we're in trouble."

Inhaling to cut off his internal screams against the outrageous danger involved and begrudgingly finalize the suggestion to his two little brothers, he continued, "But if you two are willing to get close to those sites over there..." The three glanced in that general direction again, and every inch of land around the group seemed to just scream for them to come down and feed their lives to the hungry void of darkness – "If you guys are willing to get close, we can sneak up to their living camps and see if they have food, and things that Donnie needs."

And while Raph admittedly expected some kind of protest, or suggestion that maybe holding onto their luck and staying away would be better, while a sad kind of resignation had come to their faces, his younger siblings only looked at him with resolve, returning his gaze earnestly. And while Raph realized his little brothers probably saw the need to take their chances for the resources while they still had any chance, he couldn't help how so, incredibly proud he was of his little knuckleheads in that moment. Because they all knew how afraid each of them was of those things, even if they didn't talk about how, despite everything they'd seen, they were shaken straight down to their bones.

Donnie nodded. "I...I think," He said in a small voice, "We need to scope the areas out and at the very least, see what's possible. If we don't at least try, we might be missing all the resources this place has to give us. And even though those things are down there..." He paused for a second to give a nervous, unwilling glance back at one of the little camps in the forest, "If something were to happen...we need all the strength we still have in order to get away. But even if it doesn't go well, and we find nothing, and we have to change tactics afterwards..."

He looked at Mikey, and Mikey nodded, looking up into Raph's eyes with big baby blues, full and hopeful. "We can know we at least tried."

Looking down at his little brothers gazing back up at him with such courage, as full of pride and love as he was, the gut-wrenching _worry_ threatened to eat Raph alive now, because now that his little brothers expressed the same acknowledgement of the tough decision they had to make, they had to go and _do_ it, and God help him, he was terrified straight down to his soul; because he was entering the mouth of the devil with his two little baby brothers, and he was going to be using every fiber of his rage and being to watch and protect the two precious little turtles, but if they got in there and they were discovered, he wasn't sure how much all the wrath of God would help them.

And with all these feelings and resolve and doubt shared and understood between the three of them, Raph pulled his little brothers into the tightest, most affectionate and _horrified_ hug, and they burrowed in deeply without hesitation, afraid themselves of what they had to do.

* * *

 _A/N:_ I can't wait to keep going :D

This is the first story I've ever published by the chapter without progress ahead of it, so I hope it's ok lol! I'll be working on the next chapter as soon as possible.

LEO, YOU MOTHER HEN, GO GET YOUR CHIT'LENS


	5. Chapter 5

Some time after they'd made their plans on the canyon wall, the group of three had climbed back down and with nothing to hold them back, started out on their trip towards the left of the two areas in the woods just beyond the canyon. Both places looked to be several hours away from the vantage point they'd had, and as they continued walking at the eased, energy-conserving pace they were, darkness started to fall once more and they decided to stop and finish the trip the next day. By now they were in the woods again, and it was fortunately easier to find small nooks and crannies to potentially stop at, but at the same time, the hunted feeling and paranoia of being watched returned to them again as they remembered their last trip through the woods, and none could really decide which area they preferred.

Like last time, once they'd come to a stop after the long walk, each of them was aching in a bad way, and all injuries felt inflamed and swollen beyond any hope of comfortable rest. And now that they'd left the little creek of water in the canyon far behind, they were thirsty.

Mikey made a point of groaning and dropping on his backside against a blackened tree, once they stopped for a break in a section where the underbrush wasn't too thick and thorny. All of their feet hurt badly after walking across several rough miles of rocks, branches and who knew what else.

Having been able to lean on his walking stick, Donnie wasn't too much worse off than the rest of them, but far more sore, to be sure. Still, he worriedly hobbled over to the youngest, despite his clearly throbbing ankle. "How is your side, Mikey?"

"S'ok." Mikey replied, easily bantering his older brother's worry and waving to indicate that he sit and rest, too. Raph walked in front of them, looking at their surroundings.

"I think I saw a cave a little bit further that way," He indicated a direction to the side with his head, "So we should check that out once we've rested for a minute. How you guys hold'n up?"

Mikey and Donnie shared a glance, clearly in the same condition, so Mikey delivered the report with a small grin. "We'll survive," He said, and giggled at the dissatisfied grunt that got from their older brother. "But Raphieeee, my feet hurt."

"Oh my Lord, Mikey, if you start goin' on about your feet again."

Raph didn't even need to finish as his brothers started laughing, and couldn't help the smile that grew on his face as he watched them poke at each other, faces full and bright with warmth as their heads leaned in slightly, unable to contain themselves. _"What am I gonna do with these two?"_ Raph wondered, crossing his arms and grinning affectionately down at them, and not just because they weren't looking right then.

" _Alright_ alright, I've had enough of you two." Grunting, Raph suddenly stooped down and hiked them both up into the air, eliciting small cries and squeals of laughter and protest and shushing, while Raph turned around and stalked back toward the cave like a giant, grasping the two like sacks with flailing limbs.

And he almost made it a few steps, too, before his smirk suddenly vanished and he almost dropped Donnie on his head as his arm gave out and he fell to one knee with a hiss of pain, and the fun and games were immediately over as the two younger brothers crowded around the older in deep concern, carefully supporting him.

"Raph, how many times do I have to tell you? Don't push yourself!" Donnie admonished, he and Mikey quickly hoisting their older brother up as Donnie made a quick check of the aggravated shoulder injury, despite the older weakly attempting to shove his hands away.

"It wouldn'ta hurt if you hadn't made me do it..." Was all Raph stubbornly grumbled in response, and Donnie giving him a pretty definitive huff of disapproval to that, the three carefully made their way to their chosen shelter for the night, nervously looking about at the newly disturbed night noises surrounding them.

.

.

.

Mikey opened his eyes when something sharply brought him back to consciousness.

It was still dark out and Raph and Donnie were sound asleep, the three of them huddled closely together in the cave that was even colder than their last stake-out – ignoring the dryness of his mouth he initially noticed, his drowsiness quickly fading as his senses quickly grew sharper with anxiety. He had a strong sensation that an unfamiliar sound had woken him up. Nervous, he peered around in the darkness and watched the small opening of the little cave like a hawk. Maybe he should wake up Raph? He shifted in preparation to do that –

Terror immediately took him over and caused everything in his whole body to freeze when he saw the unmistakable, tall and inky black of a limb appear outside their cave entrance.

It was just a moment later he also heard a sound that made him want to cry, the growls and screeches of those prowling monsters staking out the area in a group of what could've been five.

The groans and sharp cries just outside the sanctuary of their little cave made Mikey's numb body move on its own, unable to control how he started jerkily giving Raph sharp nudges with his head, inhaling sharply at every sudden squawk and crow from outside. Raph mumbled a little irritably as he woke up, but very quickly picked up on the panic from his youngest.

"Mm...Mikey? What's –" He mumbled, but cut off when Mikey quickly started shaking his head, desperately staring up at him with eyes wide as saucers.

One monster screeched at another outside, and Raph immediately understood.

He stared back at Mikey then, his own eyes wide, and quickly, quietly scooted back as far as they could go against the cave wall, holding the two tight as iron as Donnie slowly came to consciousness, too. Mikey had his hand over the immediate older's mouth before he could say anything, quickly alerting him to the situation with a gesture of his head, and now the whole group was stonily silent.

Petrified, the three waited for a few moments as they listened, watching them walking around with their joints snapping all about and looking like nothing less than a nightmare in the dark gloom of night. It was all the two youngest could do to clench their eyes shut and hide their faces in the older's chest when one of the things walked by the cave entrance with its head down just a little too far. Already, their violence was obvious, when one pushed another into a tree and caused the whole thing to come crashing down, the other giving an angry cry back.

Hands trembling, Raph quickly remembered the sais at his sides and unsheathed them, securely wrapping his arms around the others again as he prepared to move. Voice so low and quiet it was almost inaudible, he whispered shakily, "Keep quiet. We'll wait an' see if they move on, but if they don't, we gotta leave. They might sniff us out again."

Mikey looked at the back of the cave, and immediately pressed his face into Raph's chest again, using every ounce of his determination to not cry. "There's only one way out. We can't go that way, Raphie. They'll get us. We can't go that way." He desperately whispered back.

Looking down at him sadly, Raph suddenly buried his head between theirs and kissed Mikey on the cheek, giving them a tight squeeze. "It's ok, little brother. We're gonna be fine. I'm right here, and I ain't letting nothin' happen to either of you. It's gonna be fine."

Whimpering in terror, Donnie felt around for the walking stick he'd picked up earlier that day in order to arm himself with it, but to his surprise, found it wasn't there. Which was odd, he was sure he'd taken it with him, but maybe he dropped it outside, where – he buried his head in the side of Raph's neck hopelessly, the three waiting to see their fate as a small fight was breaking out between the two quarreling monsters from before.

With a loud screech, one of them bit another in the skirmish, and at that point things started to turn ugly pretty quickly as two more entered the fight, with one wildly crowing on the sidelines and circling the others, as if stalking prey.

And suddenly, Donnie nudged Raph's head with his, looking at him with wild, terrified eyes. "Raph." He whispered, rushed and somehow even more quietly than before, "They're distracted. Let's go while we can. Hurry, hurry."

Sparing half a second to glance questioningly at Mikey and starting to get up when the youngest shut his eyes and tried to move, wanting to rush ahead and just do it if they were leaving, Raph quickly grabbed both their hands as they latched onto his arms, approaching the front of the cave in three lightning-quick strides and waiting for the best chance to make a break for it, employing every ounce of ninja stealth they had.

The three all but slammed themselves against the cave wall again when they saw the circling monster was in a position to easily see them, but was slowly circling its back to them, unaware.

Waiting, waiting, _waiting –_ just as it felt like the tense silence would break them, they finally had a small window of opportunity with each of the monsters distracted, and without hesitating, the three bolted from the mouth of the cave and _ran for their life._ An unusual cry sounded in the distance behind them, but they didn't know whether it was because they'd been seen, or one of the things had gotten hurt in the fight, or whatever other reason; they didn't dare look back to check, as Raph cut forward through the woods like a bullet, guiding his two little siblings holding on tight and trailing behind him. Eventually, Mikey did look back, but the woods behind them were dark and empty, and the noise of the monsters was quickly fading into the distance.

Could that mean – they'd gotten away? Were they coming for them, though? None of them seemed to be able to tell, but Mikey didn't really dare to believe they were safe.

But they didn't slow down. And after another second, Donnie raised his voice just over the crackling and crunching sound of Raph barreling through the landscape. "Raph! I just thought of something I think we need to do, now,"

Raph slowed just a fraction to turn and look at his younger brother, scowling deeply with determination and frustration from cutting through the forest. "What is it?" He replied, voice slightly raised and anxious like Donnie's.

"If they're wandering the woods, there might not be any left at their living site!"

At this, Raph finally started slowing down from their desperate sprint, and in just a few seconds, they'd come to a complete stop, leaning over and panting. Poor Donnie was immediately limping, bad foot completely off the ground and one hand under that leg. "If they've abandoned their camp site, it's the best chance we're gonna get. We have to go investigate it, now."

Raph paused for only a short second in consideration, before saying, voice slightly rough and still panting, "We don't know how many there are."

And Donnie paused after this too, a little longer than Raph, but Mikey didn't think it was because he didn't know that; only it was clearly the biggest risk, the biggest chance they had to take, and the three had to be willing to accept it.

In the end, "I know." Was the only reply Donnie gave, and then he waited, because they could either pursue the risky mission now, while the whole world might be converging on their location right at that second, or take advantage of the best opportunity they thought they were probably gonna get on this planet.

And the decision was made within the group without another word or even a moment of thought, and with Mikey supporting Donnie's bad side, the three were hurrying off in the direction of their original destination for the second time.

* * *

The good thing was, the little group reached the small clearing without further incident, and it was, in fact, abandoned.

The bad thing was, there was _nothing_ there.

Nothing. Not any kind of recognizable living camp with food, or water, or any supplies or signs of habitation, not even a den, or whatever they expected those things to live in. It was a small clearing with a few oddly – well, alive – trees grown at the edges, the only actual green grass they'd seen yet, and nothing else.

The three had approached this area with a little more caution than if they'd been expecting an army of the dead, but at the jarring lack of _anything,_ they wandered into the area in utter disbelief.

Donnie put his hands to his head, looking around in shock. "This is the right place. Isn't this the right place? We couldn't have...there was nothing else that...I know I heard them, why were they here, if there's nothing, _nothing –_ " He mumbled, half in question to Raph and half to himself.

"It is. It's gotta be...it's gotta be." Raph answered back, staring blankly. He shook his head, and being the only thing that could break through his own shock, a snap of anger made him growl in frustration and swipe at nothing with his sais. "Why is there nothing here!"

Mikey put his hands over his face, feeling defeated. He knew what this meant came next, but what misfortune had just fallen in their laps – of all the things he and his brothers had been through before, waiting and fighting for survival for an undetermined amount of time because they had nothing to _live_ on wasn't one of them. And Raph and Donnie weren't talking about one of the biggest threats to their survival – this planet was _cold,_ much more so to them since they'd been in it _._ And the four brothers didn't do cold. They'd be ok, if they found another burrow in the ground like Mikey had found before, and the entrance was more closed off than the last one and they stayed huddled together. But even with water, no food meant their own heat wouldn't last as long.

And speaking of that, whatever his brothers decided to do next, he wished they would hurry up and leave here, because it was so _cold_ in this clearing! He grabbed his arms and shivered, and Raph sighed beside him.

"I would'a wished they at least had some minerals nearby that you could use, Don," He said, running an exasperated hand over his head, and the second-youngest approached him.

"We can still try the second clearing. We still have that. But if we check it, and there's nothing there either..."

They paused for a second, debating seriously between the two other options they'd discussed before, and Raph just barely quieted an angry cry of frustration, dragging tense hands over his face. "I hate this place. I hate this whole _stupid_ planet! I _hate_ it!"

Donnie grabbed Raph's arms to calm him down, sadness on his face. "I know. I know. I do too."

And after that, nothing else was said for a few moments. And when despair that they'd been fighting off with their lives for the past two days started trying to sink down over them in that stretch of silence, with anger and hurt and fear and an absolute stubborn refusal to let this setback stop them, Raph grabbed both little brothers into his arms and squeezed them as tight as he could.

Donnie and Mikey didn't need any persuasion to give him a strong hug back, giving each other a secret look before hiding their faces in his neck. Again, both little brothers prayed thanks that as long as they were trapped here, Raph was with them. The older brother might be mischievous and generally got into a lot more trouble than he kept others out of, but if he was nothing else, he was loyal to and protective of his whole family, especially protective of his little siblings. And even if he wasn't sure of himself all the time, and none of the three could say they felt safe here whatsoever, the feeling of safety he gave his younger two just by being around, and being there as something they could bury themselves and hide in – it made all the difference in the world, even if he wasn't aware of it at all.

Once they separated, though, Donnie was giving Mikey a quizzical look and Raph rubbed both of his youngest brother's arms briskly, trying to warm them up. "What's with you, bro, trying to turn into an ice cube?" Raph asked.

Mikey rubbed his own arms, giving them a whiney look. "You guys seriously don't feel it? It's so _cooold!_ Can we go? I hate it here, it makes me feel all weird."

Scoffing lightly, Raph looked up around at their surroundings anyway, trying to gain some sense of direction, and finally pointed into the woods in what their best guess was East. "We might as well head over to the second clearing then. It ain't safe here anyway, so let's get a move on. We'll rest somewhere along the way if we get too tired."

Agreeing, the two little brothers nodded, and Mikey hooked the arm of Donnie's bad side over his shoulders so they could start out, wincing as he did and being thankful neither noticed – his side was in a pain that was slowly coming up on Outrageous, but that was nothing he couldn't –wouldn't – make himself handle. He did pause, however, and Raph stalled in confusion, when Donnie looked back once and stopped, face going white as a sheet.

"What is it, Don –" Mikey started to ask, but stopped mid-sentence when he turned to look too, knees almost buckling.

There, in the center of the undisturbed clearing, laying alone and otherwise unassuming in the grass, was Donnie's walking stick.

* * *

A/N: I've read all your comments, thanks so much everybody! I love hearing what you guys think :)


	6. Chapter 6

_Clank!_

April rounded a corner in the now well-known engine room of the Ulixes, searching for a certain turtle whom she found in the same place she'd been finding him for the past two days – the heart of the damage. While normally side-by-side with the Professor, both humorously covered in engine oil and April was afraid to guess what else, Professor Honeycutt re-wiring and re-welding his ship while Leo took care of other physical labor, the oldest turtle now stood there alone, awake earlier than everyone else so he could keep hammering away at the broken pieces. And there he was now, hammering away, hunched over, every sharp movement and tense muscle in his body screaming agitation and giving off this on-edge atmosphere that made April feel a little nervous.

"Leo," She said evenly, not sure whether or not announcing her presence was necessary, and knowing better than to try to touch the agitated turtle. "You've been working really hard. You should rest so you can be in the best condition to continue, it'll help to find the others."

"Thanks April." He responded simply, but didn't turn around to look at her or stop, and his voice sounded a little...unstable. Somehow. More so than it had yesterday.

"Leo, are you ok?" April dared to ask, raising her hand slightly in concern, even though she was several feet away. She could easily guess, on her own. Leo had become oddly withdrawn and uncharacteristically brash about things, but they had all easily understood that. To her and Casey at least, his reaction was like common sense, anything less from the over-protective, secretly overly-affectionate and detrimentally responsible oldest brother who'd just lost everything he loved most in the whole world – anything less would've been far more surprising. But she was worried, because she _didn't_ want this to deteriorate any further and negatively affect his health, even though she suspected it had already begun to. She wanted him to talk to her.

In the end, she settled for, "You seem to have been acting different lately. You know you can always talk to me and Casey, right?"

Leo didn't hesitate in his actions and still didn't turn to see her, but didn't respond for a beat before saying, "Everything's fine. Don't worry about me."

Frustration flared in her for a quick second, but after consideration, bit it back down. Keeping her voice gentle, she said, "Ok. But I do think you need some rest. Professor Honeycutt will be done recharging pretty soon so he'll be down here working, too. He's just barely been giving himself enough time to recharge at all, I'm sure he'll be down here immediately after you, anyway. I think you should –"

With a sudden, loud clang, a hammer struck something and dropped to the floor as Leo simultaneously cried out, shaking his hand and letting out a few strained, garbled words that were very pointedly _not_ curse words but only because he'd reigned them in quick enough, the closest to cursing April thought Leo ever did get. Gasping, she reached forward quickly, but he was waving her off before she could come to check on him.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." The words came out as slightly more of a growl than he'd intended, but both ignored it. He was leaning down to pick up the hammer now, and only then did April see the side of his face – oh _God,_ did he sleep at all last night?

"Leo," April finally said, with slight exasperation this time, "You really should –"

"I said _everything's fine!_ " Leo suddenly snapped, wheeling around to face her, and April froze in shock.

Both only stared at each other for a tense moment as surprise lingered thick in the air. April wasn't used to Leo being snappy, at all, but she firmly stood her ground. And as Leo realized the way he was acting, he rubbed both hands into his face, grimacing as he remembered the hammer and tossing it back to the floor.

"I'm sorry, April." He said, staring intensely at the ground, unable to look her in the eye. When his hands began noticeably trembling, he crossed his arms instead, beginning to prattle out some nonsense excuse for what he was doing, but April wasn't really paying attention. He didn't have the courage to look at anything but the ground and was blocking her out with his arms crossed, digging his fingers into his arms and the pain and the worry painted on his face making him look twenty years older than he was, and all April wanted in the whole world was to know how to make him understand it was _gonna be ok –_ _"Oh, Leo."_ She thought.

"I-it's fine, Leo, don't worry about it." She said, cutting into his mumbled apologies, but making it clear, she was _concerned,_ not _nervous._ "Is your hand ok?"

"Oh..." Leo looked down at his evidently hammered thumb, quickly reddening. "Yeah, it's fine. Just needs some ice, maybe."

"Ok." She gave him a placating look, expression softening. "Will you come with me to the main terminal, at least? The sooner we get it iced, the better."

Sighing, rubbing his other hand over his head, looking down, he said, "Ok. I guess so." And followed her out without any more of a fight. April couldn't help continuously looking back on the way, wanting to take his arm or do _something_ to reassure him and make sure he was still following, but felt as though he needed as much space as possible right now. He was a master at hiding it, even as far as his own brothers went, but he was almost like a ticking time bomb about to go off at any moment. And, if it weren't for the progress they'd made on the ship – with a last few adjustments Professor Honeycutt had to make to the motor, they should be finished that same day – April worried Leo might actually just come apart at the seams.

April made the smallest of bittersweet grins, quickly swallowed again by worry a second later. But oh, if he didn't love his baby brothers like a wildfire out of control.

Sometimes she just wished he could see the triple-sized love he had in return...

When they got to the main room, April was surprised to see Casey already up and working away at his and Raph's usual flight dock. He was hunched over stacks of papers, before looking up and waving when he noticed them come in, and going straight back to work without another word. Going to the "kitchen" of the room, April beamed up some ice and put it in a sack, turning and placing it over Leo's sore thumb.

"Just hold it there for a little while, until the swelling goes down." She said, knowing fully well he already knew that, but that didn't matter to her. "After that, do you think it'd be possible for me to haggle you into a couple hours of sleep?" She asked, giving him a light, humorous grin.

And he returned one back, something she hadn't seen on him in days, and she lit up with relief and happiness. "Just a couple hours, maybe." He responded. "But no more than that."

"Deal." She smiled fuller at him, placing hands on her hips. Now if she could only get Casey to start _eating_ the food he made, they'd start getting somewhere...

Her thoughts were cut short and the three turned sharply when Professor Honeycutt suddenly rushed into the room, stopping at the front window where he pulled up some electronic screens and only acknowledging the other room's occupants when he'd gone over some information at an unnervingly rapid pace. Turning his head to them, he said, "I picked up another nearby presence on my monitors; it appears they're heading this way."

Shock went through the room. "What?!" Casey blurted, jumping out of his pod to run closer to the large screen for a better look.

"Is it the same guys from before?" April asked, her and Leo quickly coming closer, too. "I thought we'd gotten away from them!"

"It does appear to be from the same group we fought before," The Professor responded, working quickly at the computer again and pulling up surveillance feed of a small ship. "But it seems to be a smaller group, this time. I'd assume it's a small band that got lost either looking for us or trying to return home, and happened to find us again by chance."

"Well, they're making the most of it," Leo scowled, glaring up at the image as orange lights lit up at the front of the enemy ship. "They're preparing to fire. Everybody get ready!"

Everyone ran to their positions, Leo jumping into his pod and firing up the nearly-repaired drive motor, clasping his hands in anxiety as the motor churned and sputtered while their enemy's lasers charged.

"Come on, come on, come on...!" Gritting his teeth, he grasped both driving handles tight enough that a couple knuckles popped, waiting for the right moment, waiting –

The small enemy ship in the surveillance feed lurched a little with recoil, and Leo's scowl deepened. " _Now!_ "

Pulling back on the driving handles with all his strength, the motor roared and the Ulixes _lurched_ , jumping up out of the line of fire in just the nick of time, and Leo turned the ship to face their new enemies as the surveillance feed cut out, allowing them to see the three enemy ships where they were.

"Casey," He growled, "Fire at will!"

"Way ahead of 'ya!" Casey smiled wildly, lurching his own two handles forward and pressing the buttons on the top, and the Ulixes' largest lasers went firing away.

"April, I need you to help Casey man the weapons," Leo said, April dashing across the room to the pod as he spoke, and he returned his attention to flying just quickly enough to realize the other ships were whipping around their attacks, and dodge the ones they sent back. "Tsk! These guys don't know how to pick their battles, do they?"

"They're flying crazy to make themselves hard targets," Casey said, lazer-focus on his enemies. "I need a clear shot, Leo!"

"Can do," The leader replied, flying quickly and horizontally by an enemy ship, and Casey and April let lose rapid fire as they passed, successfully taking one down.

"Bulls-eye," April mumbled, both her and Casey watching the remaining two intently as Leo performed acrobats with the Ulixes equally as impressive as their enemies as all attempted to get a clear shot of one another –

"They shouldn't have those," Professor Honeycutt suddenly exclaimed, watching the ships on a smaller monitor he was working at in a frenzy. "They're too small, they shouldn't have those! Seeker missiles, watch out Leonardo!"

But before anyone could respond, the missiles had already been launched from the two remaining ships, and were hurtling toward the Ulixes. All Leo had time to do was act, and act he did. Making a 360 that would have normally sent everyone tumbling to the back of the room, Leo raced away from the missiles and toward a large meteor, causing the Ulixes to flip a couple times to get it behind it in time –

A huge explosion was followed by a massive shockwave that rocked the ship just a half-second after, and all on board clenched their eyes shut, held on tight and hoped for the best. After a tumbling sensation that lasted a couple minutes, they dared to look again.

The large meteor had completely exploded, the shrapnel from which attacked their enemies in such a barrage that both remaining ships had exploded, their damaged internal parts sending them flying off into who knew what part of space afterward, leaving the Ulixes, once again, completely alone.

No one reacted for several minutes; frozen stock-still to settle their nerves, listen out for any remaining enemies and give room for a foreboding anger that was growing in the atmosphere.

After this pause, Leo suddenly jerked away from his post with a "Tsk!" and began stalking to the door to leave the room. The remaining three gave each other concerned, wary looks, and could only guess he was heading to assess the ship's new damage, not wanting to hear it from the Professor.

April was about to call out and attempt to stop him, but Professor Honeycutt suddenly made another discovery. Something on his small monitor blinked loudly, and he looked back at it to investigate, the older turtle pausing on his way out.

"Looks like we have an extra passenger," Professor Honeycutt said just a tad too anxiously, no doubt more worried about what this meant for the passenger than for them. "It appears he managed to latch himself to the Ulixes during the fight in an attempt to infiltrate. Now, without being hasty, I think we should all take a second to formulate a –"

But with a grunt, Leo was already storming out the door, in a different direction this time, and the other three could almost _feel_ the heat coming off of his back.

"L-Leo, wait! Just – hold on a second!" April called uselessly, the three rushing after him.

They caught up just in time to find Leo dismantling tightly-sealed latches around a large window in a hallway, a window that lead _right_ out into space, without a suit or any kind of protection on.

" _Leo!_ " April squawked as the turtle furiously opened the window, she and Casey flinching back as air roared out into the opening, and Professor Honeycutt had to stop to grab on and anchor them down. Leveraging himself on the edge of the window with an iron grip, grimacing angrily, Leo reached outside and suddenly yanked in their stowaway, throwing him against the opposite wall of the hallway as he simultaneously swung back inside and pulled the window shut again.

Professor Honeycutt was running to re-seal the window shut at the same time as Leo was lunging at the trespasser, pinning him against the wall. April and Casey vaguely recognized it as one of the alien species they'd bothered on their first planet, after all, but he was different from the bug guy or some others that had particularly been giving them trouble. He was stocky and had tentacles on his face and was a bit on the shorter side, but other than that, the humans couldn't make any distinctions about him that really stuck out. They just made unfortunate bad blood, before the alien fleet tore something important away from their little group that they shouldn't have.

"You chose the wrong ship to get cocky with." Leo practically snarled, grabbed the alien by the face and started leading him down the hallway towards the launching room, and April vaguely wondered if Leo was planning on strapping a spare rocket to the alien and shooting him off into space. Again, the three quickly followed, trying to wrestle control of the situation back from Leo without everyone losing it completely.

"Rrrrgrrr, you arrrre the ones who have overstepped theirrr boundaries, our masterrr was simply upholding his honorrrr!" The alien shot back as he struggled to get out of Leo's hold. "Just like your weak comrrrrades, we will wipe you all from ourrrr territory."

Leo froze mid-step like ice. The three following behind almost stumbled over each other to stop in time, and pulled in a breath. If they'd had a chance to keep things from escalating before, it was gone now.

Casey thought he heard it before he saw it – Leo had suddenly smashed the alien back up against the wall, arm at his throat, the ignorant alien squirming violently and choking for air, and Leo seethed with his forehead pressed hard against the alien's, "Say that again, and _**I will kill you, right, here**_ _._ "

"Leo, stop!" Casey shouted, rushing forward toward the pair, but the alien kicked and struggled as he began speaking again, keeping Casey at a distance.

"Let go of me! It is not ourrrr fault they fell to Algalga! Everrrryone knows to stay away from there!"

Leo suddenly ceased his assault at this, and let up slightly on the alien's throat, allowing him to take in gulps of air. "What did you say? Algalga?"

The alien looked disgruntled and hesitated, but Leo gave him a rough jostle against the wall. "Tell me what you know!"

"Yes," The alien finally hissed out, angry and reluctant. "Algalga, the planet of darkness. Even the inhabitants of that sectorrrr of space do not understand the evil that lurks there; no one will go nearrrr it. It is said that demons may rrrroam the place and the planet is a functioning gateway between our rrrreality and the Dark Realm itself, the Ink Lake, Hell, Arakrat. But we do not know, there arrrre no public accounts of anyone escaping alive."

The air around the group felt thick and icy and hung with despair, and silence stretched out for a moment after the alien's explanation; no one had it in them to respond, and the air seemed to have escaped their lungs. The two humans didn't miss the way the trembling had returned to Leo's hands, fiercely restrained, but strong enough that he was straining badly.

The alien looked frustrated in his confusion at their reactions. "You do not understand it. Yourrrr three are long gone, therrrre is no use in holding so tight to your pride, disgusting crrrreatures. We knew it when we saw them fall to the planet –"

Wild, violent things had been going through Leo's sharp, frenzy-neon-blue eyes as his expression gradually tensed to match them, and the three watching with all the tense anxiety of a gun standoff were about to intervene, when Leo suddenly did such a violent 180 that it should've hurt.

"You saw them?" He asked, his previously _clear_ murderous instincts suddenly turning to maniacal panic. "You saw where they fell to the planet? Did they make it alive? Tell me _now! What did you see?!_ " He emphasized this last part with a slam against the wall, gripping the alien's arms so tight now that one swift move could snap them.

There was a short pause as the alien considered the situation, based on Leo's frantic questions. But in the end, he smirked, amusement running uncontrollable across his face, and he even had the nerve to let out a chuckle. "What I said beforrrre does not change, creature. They are a lost cause. Even if they had not fallen to the planet of death in flames, without strrrruggling in pain, with their glass shatterrrred, they would have never survived." The alien shrugged. "What morrrrre did you expect, from such incompetent, suicidal little shits–"

 _ **Crack!**_

Honestly, it didn't come as a surprise at all. But with Leo leaning to the side with the momentum, white-knuckled fist stretched out ahead of him, and the alien falling to the ground with an arch of blood, it still took a second for the group to comprehend that _shit has broken loose_ and even longer trying to decide whether to stop the alien's impending murder, or – considering which brother they were dealing with right now – get the _hell_ out of the way.

Everyone quickly started acting on the latter, however, when it became clear that Leo had _lost_ his ever-loving sanity; he was in full-on demolition mode. He grabbed the alien by the shoulders before he even had a chance to hit the floor, and threw him clear down the hallway, and Casey swore he didn't hear the guy land until he'd severely impacted the wall at the end. Leo was halfway there by the time he did, and took no time in grabbing him up again.

The alien flinched back when Leo pulled him close, expecting to be punched or thrown around some more, but Leo grabbed his attention back when he hesitated to growl one thing at him –

"I know you got a lot of problems, even for the usual psychotic, homicidal scumbag." He snarled, eyes white hot with anger. "But what's most unfortunate, is you don't seem to understand...it was _precisely_ your fault."

And with that, Leo swung the thing by the tentacles on its face into the floor. The alien tried to fight back and get in some punches, but it didn't last long since each of Leo's strikes packed enough rage to smash pieces of his soul out of his body. The remaining three ran after the pair, crying out for Leo to stop, but in all honesty, they didn't have enough sympathy for the alien to risk their lives trying to physically wrench Leo off of him – especially since watching the fight was starting to look like watching a pinball bounce around its machine. Leo was immediately executing some of the most violent moves the humans had seen out of him, and as much as he struggled and tried to fight back, the alien quickly became nothing more than a punching bag catapulting off the walls. So April held onto Professor Honeycutt, crying out for Leo to come to his senses, while Casey clenched his fists and tried to convince himself when and how to jump in, his heart racing, and April guessed the only reason the alien hadn't lost consciousness yet was because it didn't have a big enough brain up there to damage.

Finally, Leo had the alien down on the ground, kneeling over him and punching his face repeatedly, blood spattering on the floor and walls. Scowling, gritting his teeth, murder written all over his face, he growled unhearing, inane things as he mercilessly pounded the alien, control totally gone from his eyes. "You're one to be calling names...after the kinds of things... _your_ people did! Suicidal? _Suicidal! I'll show you exactly who's fucking_ _ **suicidal!**_ "

" ** _Leo!_** "

Three pairs of arms were suddenly wrapped around the oldest turtle, struggling against his fury with all their might to restrain him, and it was only by the extra strength of Professor Honeycutt's mechanical arms that they were finally able to inch him off of the beaten alien, struggling all the way. But with one last spurt of rage, Leo ripped away from the three and grabbed the ever-ignorantly defiant alien by the ankle, and dragged it back down the hallway at a run before lurching for the window he'd previously opened. Snapping all locks back open and throwing it wide, the three made it just in time to grab on and keep Leo from flying out himself, but not soon enough to stop him from slinging the alien back out the hole he'd dragged him in through, screaming senselessly into the void as the thing flew away kicking and punching at nothing, until it was gone.

Professor Honeycutt heaved and dragged the window closed again, quickly re-latching the locks for the second time as he wildly expressed his dismay. "Heaven above, I _do_ say, if you keep throwing my windows open, Leonardo, I'm going to have to weld them shut or replace them completely just to keep the three of you from–"

But he stopped at the sound of sniffling behind him; and after hesitating, he turned around, immediately shifting from admonishing to sad. Leo remained unmoving on the floor, April and Casey standing gingerly behind him, just for fear he didn't want to be touched; on hands and knees, fists to the ground and head almost low enough to touch it, too. Finally, shoulders trembling, he pressed his forehead to the ground and placed his hands over his head, crying very quietly, sniffing and hiccupping.

" _Leonardo._ " April is the first to move, and she swiftly dove to the ground after her dearest friend and brother, wrapping tight arms around his middle and immediately becoming an anchor that he latched onto like he was drowning. Casey was there immediately after, and the Professor, too, huddled on the ground in a strong, somber hold with Leo embraced in the middle.

They stayed that way for quite a while, until Leo's crying had time to manifest, and then die again; and April dared everything she'd ever known to ever hurt Leo like this again, because the grating, hopeless despair in the oldest brother's quiet, sob-choked voice was enough to make her wish he was still beating the alien to death, instead. She just held him tightly, with his head buried in her shoulder in defeat, and after he began to quiet again, all took an extra few minutes to sit in silence and contemplate the foreboding new developments.

There was going to be more, new damage to the Ulixes now – after being that close to the asteroid explosion, Professor Honeycutt had no doubt about that. But they had plenty of time to think about that later. There was one, far more pressing concern on everyone's minds now, a pressing doubt where they'd been desperately trying to have hope.

He knew Leo wasn't about to give up his brothers for lost like that just because some alien had said they should, that much was obvious – the two humans as well, and Honeycutt refused to give up, either. But...

The alien hadn't exactly shown any signs of lying when he described the uncertain state of the lost three, either.

With a sigh, giving Leo one last rub on the head, Professor Honeycutt gently removed himself from the group to sit in front of them on his knees, instead. "The repairs we'd been making are just about done." He said. "When we were attacked the first time, it was by a large fleet with far more powerful guns than this smaller group today. I have much reason to believe that the damage caused by these ships' attacks were minimal, at best. I will inspect the impact of the asteroid on my ship and as soon as I have a full assessment, get to work. I will not allow this setback to last any longer than a few extra days. And then, we are headed straight for Algalga. Besides," He finally got to his feet, putting a firm hand on Leo's shoulder, who had looked up while he was talking, "This is my pride and joy, _Ulixes,_ here, she has a _little_ credibility." He gave them a wink of confidence at this last part, extending a hand.

Staring up at him hopefully, desperately, Leo gave April one tight squeeze before taking the Professor's hand, and all of them stood again. Casey supported Leo, even though he didn't have much actual damage from the fight, but he'd already been in such a bad state and expended so much physical and emotional energy, he was practically wobbling on his own feet.

Gratefully wrapping another arm around April's shoulders when she supported him on the other side with a comforting pat and an encouraging smile, Leo sniffed and rubbed his eyes. "I can't tell you how grateful I am, Professor." He said, voice still so weak, wet and rough, it almost didn't sound like him. "I'll join you right away. I just need to sit down for a minute..."

"If you don't mind me saying," Honeycutt interjected, catching their attention, but giving them a gracious smile – "I think you would benefit much more from a few moments' rest, Leonardo. It will take me just a little time to make a full assessment, and you would be feeling much more fit after giving your body some time to heal."

Seeming a little surprised at first, Leo finally gave him a little submissive smile, knowing without having to be told that the other two agreed, as well.

"Ok." He said. "Just a couple minutes."

Honeycutt made a happy smile in return. "I promise the three of us will be quite busy with damage control in the meantime. So why don't you go on and –" Pausing suddenly, he turned his head slightly in what seemed to be confusion and curiosity, and walked a bit further down the hallway. Confused, the three followed him to where he stopped, stooping to pick up something nobody had noticed.

"What's that?" April asked, looking in closer to see what he'd found.

The Professor held it up for all of them to see; it appeared to be a small chip-like device. "I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and it caught my attention," He said, looking at it closer. "It appears to be a kind of memory chip. I believe the alien must have dropped it from somewhere during the fight." He started fiddling with it, inspecting it closely and turning it all around. "If I can just...oh!"

Professor Honeycutt almost dropped the chip when it suddenly expanded out on all sides, becoming roughly the same size as a small phone, but was more of a flat pad instead, displaying some sort of alien database on its screen surface. Amidst text in a language they didn't recognize, there was a picture that almost looked like...

Making a strangled noise, Leo suddenly dove forward and grabbed the small screen, looking so intently at the picture that it almost seemed like he'd been looking for it all his life. He gingerly touched it with trembling fingers, eyes quickly starting to shine again as he looked down at the gritty, satellite-esque image of three figures, a little ways away from each other, but all clearly whole and _there,_ having just infiltrated the murky, quickly-re-spreading atmosphere of a dark planet. Their impacts were more clear than they were, and it was impossible to tell from the picture if they'd made it – alive – but the fact that they'd made it there at all was more reassurance than they'd had before.

"He...he had this picture," Casey said disbelievingly, looking on in awe and growing anger. "He _had_ this picture, so he _knew!_ He was _lying_ to us!"

"I do not believe so," Professor Honeycutt said, all three heads turning to him as he more thoroughly inspected the data around the image. "I believe this is an open data forum his fleet was using. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just recent information that hadn't been logged into the system yet, and he hadn't seen. He did not appear to know of this, or he would have given some sign of it." Borrowing the little screen pad from Leo for a moment, the Professor materialized a small scanning machine from the top of his wrist, and sent a wide laser across the screen. "I will copy the data on this device and look into it for further inspection, just in case. It would be best if I held onto this device, as well." He looked to Leo one more time, as if asking for permission to do this. And Leo nodded, with his mouth firmly set, eyes worriedly going back to the little pad one last time to stare hard and longingly at the precious image of his little siblings – and then ripped his gaze away with a little shake of his head, looking at the floor instead. Giving his shoulder one more firm squeeze, Honeycutt rushed away to the main room again to begin the analyzation.

"Come on, Leo." April gently said, she and Casey still supporting him on both sides, as they helped walk him to his room. "The sooner you get some rest, the sooner you can come back and help us. Once the Professor is done with that memory chip, I'm sure he'll give it to us for safe keeping." She rubbed the back of his shell comfortingly, but he only continued looking at the floor as they hobbled to his room, exhaustion and sadness like death on his face, and she wasn't even sure if he heard her. She and Casey exchanged worried glances, and led him off to bed without another word between the three.

When they managed to get Leo into bed, however, the Professor came walking briskly inside, surprising the three of them, and they watched him walk right up to the side of Leo's bed and hand him some kind of paper slip – and Leo hadn't looked at it for a full second before his hands were over his face, trembling and unable to speak, so he took the opportunity to give the Professor a half-hug when he wrapped one arm around Leo's shoulders for an affectionate jostle before briskly walking out again, whistling casually like he didn't notice Casey and April staring at him expectantly.

So after giving each other brief looks of exasperation, they walked over to see what it was, and realized Professor Honeycutt had printed out a copy of the photo from the small pad, just for Leo. And Leo was looking down at it in his hands as if it were a small child, impossible gentleness and affection so deep in his little smile that all any of them could manage to do was exchange warm smiles. And then, April and Casey left Leo's room to let him finally rest.

.

.

.

"You're such a sweetheart, Professor." April said, wide, lopsided grin on her face as the two humans entered the main room again to join the android.

Said android emoted closed eyes and said, "I don't know what you're talking about." Without turning his attention from the large computer screen at the front. Rolling her eyes, April and Casey shared a chuckle as they walked closer to him.

"Well, what's first?" Casey asked, pushing his sleeves up further. "We better get to work on the new damage to the Ulixes."

"Very soon, Mr. Jones," Professor Honeycutt said, turning to face them. "I am waiting on a full report from the system and examining camera feed from the damaged areas so I know just what needs to be done. It won't take long, but in the meantime, I'm going to be looking some more into this memory card that we've found."

Looking at each other, April and Casey shrugged, going to their own pods to sit down while they waited for instructions. April turned to Casey to make a light-hearted remark, but hesitated when she saw his somber face. "Casey," She asked, turning to him more fully. "What's wrong?"

"Huh? What?" Coming to attention, he hesitated before saying, "Oh. Ah...it's nothing. I was just thinkin'..." He sighed, April becoming concerned as the mood dampened a little, and she and the Professor waited patiently. "Leo sure beat that guy up, didn't he?"

Oh. April and Professor Honeycutt looked down, still concerned for the oldest turtle after earlier – they were concerned about him for a lot of reasons, these days.

Huffing a small chuckle, Casey continued, "I'm glad we stopped him when we did. I'm sure if he'd had his swords with him, he'd a...well..." Trailing off, Casey shifted and leaned back in his pod, crossing his arms and going back to his thoughts for a moment before speaking up again. "Hey, Professor," He eventually said, "I was wonderin'...do you think those aliens can breathe in space?"

Professor Honeycutt thought about it. He could guess why Casey was wondering, after the display Leo had made of launching their stowaway off into who knew what part of space. And it seemed pretty likely to him that they did, considering they'd found theirs latched onto the outside of the Ulixes, after all. "I believe so," He answered Casey, but turned back to the large computer screen with a somber face. "Not that they deserve to."

* * *

 _A/N:_ Sorry for the wait for this chapter, guys! :P I really tried, lol. Sometimes it's just hard to get that next one out, and I've had a lot of work these past months. I would really love to stay as constant as possible with this story, I really love to write it, and can't wait for the ultimate showdown where everyone re-unites :D (there will be buckets of fluff and lots of emotions, believe me XD)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it :)


	7. Chapter 7

The three were slowly making their way through the thick woods of the alien planet toward the second of the two clearings they'd spotted, tightly grouped together.

Mikey's stomach grumbled. How many days had it been since they came here now? Two or three? He couldn't remember. None of them had eaten in so long, but at the moment, he wasn't worried. His hand was securely in Raph's, and they swung arms absently while Raph and Donnie went back and forth about the rabbit-type animal they'd initially seen when they got here and what other, weird animals there might be, and the conversation had quickly degraded to silly imagination; and right now, with a warm smile, while Donnie exclaimed incredulously at Raph's increasingly strange make-believe animals and Raph laughed heartily, Mikey felt invincible; albeit in a weird, vulnerable way. Even though the whole world might be against them, and they were hurt and running for their lives, none of that seemed to matter, as long as they were here, together, fighting to re-unite with the rest of their family. Even so, that sense of safety and protection almost felt ready to slide away at any moment, shrouded by the fear that anything could happen to one of them at any moment within this apocalyptic planet, and after everything they'd seen, the idea spooked Mikey deeply.

As he looked at them, he saw how Raph still visibly favored his bad shoulder, seemingly more so as its bruises deepened and swelled, and he moved it less and less as it looked worse and worse; and the way Donnie tried to look like he wasn't limping over his new walking stick in refusal of anyone's assistance was the elephant in the room. Mikey hadn't been getting any better, either. His whole torso was a raging fire, and since they'd been running, it hurt to breathe in a way that wasn't going away – and until it did, he was cringing to cope with it any time he knew his brothers weren't looking. But he refused to let this slow him down. Everything about this place set off alarms that rang deeper in him than he thought they rightly should have; and his brothers weren't admitting the shape they were in, or the grimness of their situation. He had to stay vigilant, and protect them. His own handicaps would have to be set aside – this was something that he was handling, and could deal with. They came first, no matter what.

That thing with Donnie's old walking stick had been pretty spooky, though. Raph almost swept the two of them up and left the clearing right then and there, when they looked back and saw his old walking stick where nothing had been there before, and no one had come to place it – but they hesitated, because Donnie needed it, and he refused to let Raph carry him anymore. Donnie had almost just left it on principle, but when he had gone to inspect it, Mikey watched him shoot back up, turn on his heel and almost prance out of there, dragging Mikey along behind him and clearly freaked out. The three of them had exclaimed over that a bit in terror as Donnie hurried along, and Raph and Mikey rushed to keep up with him, increasingly exasperated questions and exclamations coming from all three, but Raph had eventually told everyone to chill out, because panicking over what they didn't understand would get them nowhere – so here they were.

Don had described his walking stick as feeling "like ice on fire"; and Mikey had also noticed, where that had been the first area they'd seen with foliage that was alive, the grass around the stick had suddenly died. He wondered what the others thought about that, because Mikey got scared wondering the how-and-why. Sighing, he looked around the woods and walked just a little closer to the other two. The clearing had been extra cold, but not in a way that felt familiar to Mikey; _that_ kind of cold felt like it snuck in through his chest and crept outward from his bones, and set his whole body off with an urgency to get _out._ He shivered again just thinking about it.

He couldn't help continuing to feel spooked, and the weird sounds and the constant hunted feeling made it worse. He looked over his shoulder behind their group for the millionth time, and gripped Raph's hand just a little tighter, rubbing one arm with a chill. Raph spared him a quick glance, and Mikey was fascinated by the sudden fire of concern, analyzation and warm confidence Raph shot him in the one second they made eye contact, before he turned back to Donnie to continue the discussion of what they might find in the second clearing, moment totally dismissed except for giving Mikey's hand a squeeze. He grinned. Older brothers.

"Whup-!" Donnie suddenly exclaimed in surprise, mid-sentence, he and Raph suddenly stopped. Mikey looked ahead to try and see what they were staring at.

"What was that?" Raph asked him, but was quickly moving forward to look for it already.

"Think we can eat it?" Was all Donnie responded with, and confused and well as simultaneously dismayed, Mikey turned to him in frustration.

"Eat _what?_ "

"We saw something run through the trees, like a rabbit."

"Ooh! Think we can eat it?"

Only laughing in response, the two of them looked back toward Raph when he called quietly to them, trying not to scare the creature away. "Mikey, toss me your slingshot, let me see if I can catch this bugger. Don't you two _move,_ I'll be right back."

"Don't hurt yourself with it, now," Mikey teased, throwing it to his brother just as expertly as Raph caught it and melted into the shadows of the woods a second later. With nothing left to do but wait, Mikey and Donnie sat down against a tree and tried to get comfortable.

Stretching his legs out gratefully, Donnie leaned back with an exasperated grunt, clearly happier to be sitting on the ground than he should have been, and Mikey leaned in closer.

"How's the 'ol hobbler?" He asked, scooting closer to Donnie's left ankle so he could properly examine it.

Donnie just scoffed. "Right. I should be asking about your side."

"You're too worried." Mikey complained, rolling his eyes. "Have you seen _me_ limping around?" He straightened and put his fists to his sides to prove his point, but just a little too quickly, and fire ripped up through his whole midsection, but he would have _died_ before letting any kind of pain through his stone facade of sarcasm. So, Donnie only rolled his eyes.

"I've seen enough to be worried," He grumbled in response, but then sighed and slumped a little, putting his head in one hand. His voice lowered then, so much so that it almost seemed like he was just talking to himself, but it struck Mikey with worry. "I'm worried about Raph."

Mikey sent a sharp eye up at his older brother amidst gently turning his foot. "Does his shoulder seem that bad?"

"I don't know," Donnie sighed again, and looked down in deep thought, scratching the back of his head. "The idiot won't even _begin_ to let on how bad it is without a fight."

Mikey had to chuckle. "Of course not. Can you imagine the _horror_ if we began to think he was in no shape to protect us?"

Donnie let out a little huff and a small, sentimentally affectionate grin as he continued looking at the ground, and Mikey couldn't help but make one, too. "I know. But if he pushes himself, it'll only make things worse. I said I was mostly concerned about your side, and I am for the most part, but that was only because Raph was standing there and would have given me a bunch of crap for saying how worried I am about him, too. The shoulder is not a good place to test when it's been injured, and I'm afraid of what he'll do to it if he doesn't go easy."

They sat on that thought in silence for a few moments as Mikey finished examining Donnie's ankle and re-secured its wrappings, then sat back against the tree next to his brother to watch the woods with him. Donnie absently put his arm around Mikey's shoulders snuggly and pulled him in closely, deep in thought, and Mikey carefully scooted in closer to try to soak up some of the shared warmth, gingerly trying not to jostle his side. He wanted to say something reassuring, but the reality was they both knew Donnie was right, and there wasn't really much else to do but be worried about it. Because, they knew if it did end up coming down to it, Raph would sacrifice every ounce of his senses and well-being in order to protect his little siblings in the case of an attack.

"What happens if we don't find any food?" Mikey asked, turning big baby blues on Donnie, and getting a quizzical look in return, considering Raph had just run off in chase of some. But, Donnie quickly realized Mikey's point as he kept his serious gaze on his older brother, and Donnie looked off into the woods again with a small grunt.

"Then we'll do what we can." He said, his gaze becoming firmer. He subconsciously tightened his grip around Mikey's shoulders, too, and Mikey glanced at his brother's tense hand. "Sensei taught us several survival techniques, and if it comes down to it, I'm sure we can make them work until the others find us. If we can just get to the second clearing, I'm sure we'll find something that I can use to contact them. I...I know we will. There's got to be something here, there can't just be...random spots of life, for no reason."

Staring at the ground, Mikey put his hand over Donnie's and tucked in closer, feeling his brother's gaze fall back on him. "...Do you think they're ok?"

Donnie's face fell, and his voice did, too. "I sure hope so, Mikey. With all my heart."

Mikey looked back up at Donnie again, eyes sad and deep. "I...m-miss Leo."

At this, Donnie's whole soul seemed to clench, and he shut his eyes for a second before looking back at the woods, voice taking on the slightest tremble. "I'm sure he's worried sick." He gave a small chuckle. "About ready to charge the planet, right?"

Mikey let out a choked-up laugh. "Yeah. And shouting about how everything is taking too long, and jumping out of the ship without his air helmet to swim through space when the professor isn't looking...a-and brooding a lot, 'cause he misses us and..."

"Going crazy with worry, 'cause he doesn't have Raph to smack him and say what a mother hen he is...or me to tell him he shouldn't worry, or you to hug him until he smiles again. He doesn't have any of us, to hug until he knows we're safe again. The way he likes to do." Donnie exhaled sharply, rubbing one hand over his eyes and sounding wetter this time. When he continued, his voice was much lower and quieter, and he squeezed Mikey closer. "He's probably out of his mind, right now."

Mikey put his hands over his eyes, simply not wanting to look at this place anymore, and leaned into Donnie as his older brother squeezed him and gazed ahead, both wishing Raph would hurry back already.

When both heard a sudden commotion in the distance, panic shot up their spines and they were back on their feet almost before they even realized it. And then, Donnie was already abandoning trying to scan their surroundings in order to herd Mikey towards a thicket of tightly-clustered foliage.

"Come on," He hissed, trying to push Mikey along with him, but Mikey wrestled.

"It might be Raph! We need to go see if he's ok!"

"Raph told us to stay here," Donnie growled, having just the slightest advantage over their struggle. "And if Raph needs help, it's _me_ that needs to go check on him. _**You**_ are staying here!"

Mikey shot an electric-blue gaze up at his brother, but before he could argue further, they were cut off by a shout.

" _RUN!_ "

Both smaller brothers whipped their heads in the direction of Raph's voice, horror on their faces.

"THEY'RE COMING! _**RUN!**_ "

" _RAPH!_ " Both little brothers shouted, moving forward in refusal to leave the older behind, but an enormous _CRASH_ interrupted them as a horde trees toppled down just feet behind the older brother, who waved his arms at them as he jumped as fast as he could through rotten tree branches.

Ten. There were _ten of them!_

Turning sharply in mid-air, Raph's expression suddenly turned acid and his sais were flashing in his hands, and he took such a ferocious swipe at the nearest monster that it reeled back in surprise as ink went flying –

A hellish screech suddenly ripped through the air that was so high-pitched and agonizing,all three brothers paled in unison. One screech quickly turned into three, and three erupted into a hundred as the stricken monster flailed to the side and all the ones around it erupted into crazed pandemonium. Some went after the injured creature, but many others started thrashing out at anything and everything, toppling trees and spilling over one another in waves of violence.

Raph dove out of their way as fast as his legs would take him, but a sudden chill went through his whole body when he recognized that the screeching actually sounded sort of – human. A twisted, manipulated, hopelessly lost kind of "human". And it sounded like so many more than there should've been.

The uproar gave Raph just enough time to land near his brothers and give them a rough shove, and a growl more intense than a raging storm. " _Move, now!_ "

The three bolted, eyes clenched shut and adrenaline pouring through their bodies, knowing the monsters had to be right at their heels. Gashes went ignored as they bowled through any foliage in their way –

"Aaa _aaah!_ "

Mikey and Donnie came to such an abrupt halt that they almost went tumbling forward, arching their heads back. " _ **Raph!**_ " They cried, watching the oldest get slung into the air by a black appendage.

Both little brothers started to charge forward at the same time as Raph went hacking away at his captor, but Donnie hesitated, and was suddenly heels-in-the-ground hauling Mikey backward, restraining his struggling brother and both wide-eyed as the monsters quickly poured in around Raph and toward the remaining two.

"DONNIE, _LET GO!_ " Mikey cried, struggling violently, and Donnie stared between him, Raph and the monsters with huge, terrorized eyes that could've only looked more lost than horrified.

" _GET THE_ _ **FUCK**_ _OUT OF HERE, RUN,_ _ **RUN!**_ _"_ Raph shouted, voice transitioning from violent to a terrified cry by the end of the sentence, and before they could do anything, the monsters were lurching at them, impacting several rotted trees and causing just enough chaos for Donnie to clench his eyes shut and run for their lives, little brother locked in an iron grip.

.

.

.

Run. Run. Run.

This was all Donnie could do, could think, could hear in his booming ears, for an amount of time he couldn't keep track of. The monsters gave unrelenting chase for longer than Donnie thought possible of any normal creature requiring any amount of bodily recuperation, and every time he thought he'd lost them, he would slow down to find a place to stop, just to realize they were catching up again.

" _-nnie!_ "

At some point, they had left the woods and entered a reddish, dried-out craggy area full of smog and deep canyons and towering mountains, where their cover of dead woods was replaced by smoke and a dark sky, giving Donnie the advantage of a wider range of sight, but also making him feel paranoid that they might be targets. Mikey had struggled endlessly for the first while, but had calmed down for a time, making it easier for Donnie to focus on their escape, and where he should try to go next –

" _DONNIE!_ "

Snapping to the present, Donnie gasped and almost stumbled over a rock – and then actually stumbled, and both of them went toppling into the ground. When he regained control, he looked up and panicked, scrambling to his little brother, who was already pushing himself up.

"Mikey! Are you ok?!" He grabbed onto him firmly and started to check for new injuries, ignoring the younger's protests. "God, Mikey, I'm so – is your side ok? Tell me everything that's hurting, don't you _dare_ try to hide anything from me – we can still use some of your wrappings to –"

" _Donnie._ " Mikey exclaimed, grabbing his brother by both arms and staring him down with an intense look in his eyes that Donnie didn't recognize right away. "Donnie, calm down. You're hyperventilating."

Donnie looked down at himself, and found – like he was looking at someone else – that his breaths were as rapid and shallow as the heartbeat drumming in his ears, and his whole body trembled. If they weren't already sitting on the ground, Donnie was sure he would've passed out. A horrible panicked, loss-of-control sort of feeling swept over him then, but before he could crumple in on himself, he was being enveloped.

Mikey held him in a crushingly-tight hold, and Donnie swayed for a second before trapping the younger in shivering, unbreakable arms until he felt the despair ebb away from his mind.

When they finally eased the embrace, Mikey had a wildfire of different, angrily combatting emotions in his eyes that confused Donnie, and his little brother spoke first, hands firmly on Donnie's arms. "What happened? Why didn't you respond to me?"

Donnie gave him a pained look, still trying to regain his buzzing senses. "What?"

"I told you to stop, but you wouldn't say anything. The monsters chased us away from Raph, I think you lost them thirty minutes ago. I've been trying to get your attention for like ten minutes!"

"Oh, I...I..." Donnie rubbed his head, everything that just happened flooding back to him. Raph. Raph! _Raph!_

"You've been running for almost two hours," Mikey said, exasperated and that sharpness still in his eyes, and all Donnie could do was collapse inside.

"Mikey, I...I don't...no, no...no, no. God, no..." Covering his face, the tears came quickly and suddenly, and he scooched backwards away from his brother, shaking his head. RAPH! How could he-? What had he _done! WHAT HAD HE DONE!_

" _Donnie!_ "

His little brother's voice was firm, and again, he found himself inside a determined embrace.

What? Donnie scrubbed his teary eyes, confused as he weakly hooked his arms back around the younger's shell. He looked down at Mikey, who was staring at his ankle with a troubled expression –

His ankle.

"You've been running for almost two hours." Mikey repeated, a little more quietly, and a wobbly frustration in his voice. He leaned back, looking at the ground. "You might've wrecked your ankle up for good. If you try to carry me like that again, I'll kick your butt."

Donnie's face fell and eyes filled with emotion, and he put his hands over his eyes again, full of despair. "Raph."

Mikey sighed, and dropped his head against Donnie's plastron, voice going very low and soft. "I know you'd never leave him behind. I know you would die trying to save him..."

Donnie wrapped his arms back around Mikey, dropping his torn-up face into his shoulder.

"We would've both died, trying to save him." Mikey continued, and paused. "...I wanted to go back."

Donnie sniffed, his voice rough and wet. "I know. I did too. But we would've been killed."

"We could've tried..."

"Yes. I almost did...but there was no time left. They were on us, nothing we did would've helped Raph. Nothing, nothing would've helped, and I...Raph...Raph..."

Mikey comfortingly pressed his muzzle into Donnie's neck, voice very gentle. "I know...they're way stronger than us, and had us in a corner. Maybe...going back might've prevented Raph from being able to escape, himself. You were just trying to protect me."

Donnie's grip tightened, voice crumbling further. "I didn't know what to do. I was...there was no time left, nothing we could do. I didn't know what to...Raph..."

Wrapping his arms around Donnie, Mikey held his older brother tightly while he cried into the younger's shoulder with horrible despair, snuggling his face into the crook of his neck with every ounce of comfort he had as his own tears rolled down.

Too exhausted to move forward, no one having slept last night, Mikey decided to find another cave for them to rest in, which he found easily due to the dry, rocky area they were now in. He carried Donnie to it on his back, which Donnie didn't cease to protest and struggle against – only too gentle to escape, because he didn't want to hurt his little brother – until he'd put him back down. Snuggled together as tightly as possible, their mind solely and unwaveringly on their immediate older brother, minds ripping themselves apart in horrible, frantic worry and distress – sleep eventually dragged them into the comatose dark.

* * *

 _A/N:_ Yay! :D

Sorry this one is kind of short :P I'm working on the next one right now.

So, each chapter takes me a super long time to write, which can get annoying because I'll be in different mindsets when I come back to whatever random scene I left off at. Blame this for the fact that this chapter went from 0 to 100 in .5 seconds like a tricked-out Chevy Corvette z06 lmao

excuse me while I actually go back and try to figure out how many days it's been for the C-team haha


	8. Chapter 8

Mikey peeked a sleepy eye open, and looked out the entrance of their little cavern to see a black, smoky sky.

There was one warm body wrapped up tight around him, but the other was missing, and it hit him immediately like a punch to the chest – _where's Raph?_

Darting furiously afraid looks around their cavern, suddenly much more awake, and not seeing their older brother, Mikey's heart started racing and he quickly started trying to pry himself away from Donnie without waking him. _"He might've gone off looking for food again...or...damn it Raph, when will you learn that – ...oh."_

And then Mikey's heart was sinking again, and he slowly, weakly dropped back into a seated position beside his sleeping brother, devastation sinking its teeth into him until he was stonily staring out the entrance, face ripped up with complete, utter anguish.

After a moment, he curled up and began to cry.

If only they had their phones, so that Mikey could at least send him a text, and hope against all hopes that his older brother would reply, and say he was fine, and be capable of doing such a thing so that Mikey knew he hadn't been torn up too terribly and could still, hopefully, last a little longer wherever he had ended up, so he and Donnie could come and save him...if only there were just a way of knowing, anything at all just to help him guess where Raph was, what had happened, if he was ok...any sort of hint at all, but they had nothing.

His voice hitched and he muffled a sob, face buried in his arms. Somewhere, far away in the back of his mind, he had the inclination to wonder if this was how their oldest felt, about all of them. But no – the idea of losing one, and stressing until you turned white, and driving yourself over the wall worrying and looking and working to find until your own body fell to pieces – that was bad enough. He knew that, had a glimpse of it, had watched all of his older brothers do it and even done it himself, for short, horrible instances where they'd lost track of one and didn't know if they were ok. To lose all three, all of your precious younger brothers, your whole family, your whole heart, indefinitely – he couldn't imagine.

As he'd told Donnie yesterday, those things were far stronger than they were. They were violent, and had them in a corner, and Mikey and Donnie wouldn't have survived if they'd turned around. Thinking about it very nearly made Mikey get physically sick, every time. It wasn't like Raph had any advantage either, weapons or not. The best he could say was that Raph's protective rage was a force to be reckoned with, the amount of unstoppable fury unleashed from his soul that would stop at nothing in order to protect his family. The same frenzy he could accredit to Donnie, or Leo or himself, any of them, if their family was threatened and they still had life in them to protect the others. But the three of them were sorely, horrifically outmatched. These creatures were not "enemies" and they were not to be fazed – they were what to look out for, the exception and the end of discussion, and if they were seen, you had better run, hide and pray.

He hadn't brought it up yet, and wasn't sure if he would, but Mikey didn't really think Raph had hurt that one back there. Ink was thrown into the trees, and the things had cried out and hesitated in their onslaught, but none of that had been in pain. Their cries had been a lot of things, and were filled with hunger, and violence, and torment, and many other things that Mikey only knew how to describe by the dry coldness and horror that washed over him then and launched his feet in the opposite direction. But, pain wasn't something he had detected there. Not then, not when he watched them pour in around the stricken one and began demolishing it the same way as before, howling through those long, black jaws.

Mikey rubbed a hand over his head, then both, battling a ravaging anxiety with all he had. Raph...he...

He was alive. He had to be. Mikey was sure of it. He gritted his teeth, angrily pounding the thought into himself, searing it into his soul. His brother was fierce, and protective, and had both his weapons, and was smart enough to pull his punches where he had to in order to escape alive. He knew what he had to do, and was handicapped – no, no, he's alive. Mikey would not consider any alternative. Raph was alive, and he might be waiting for them to come and help him. They had to go look for him.

He sighed, and looked down at his big brother's ankle with an uneasy frown, thinking of their next course of action. Donnie's ankle had swollen incredibly since their escape from the monsters...it looked awful. He was sure it would be hurting awfully, too, as soon as he woke up. He was in no shape to travel, immediately.

So, then, they should try to recuperate as soon as possible, in order to begin their search. It wouldn't take much to convince Donnie they had to keep moving, and in fact he might even have to make Donnie wait until his ankle had recovered a bit; even then, they most likely wouldn't wait long enough for it to recover very much at all. Time was precious, and Mikey anticipated they'd be back out after a day or two, tops.

It was evening of their third day, and the darkness would hide him better. Mikey nodded; he might as well look for water and, hopefully, anything they could eat. He began crawling out of the cavern, immediately flinching and having to stop for a moment, doubling over with his teeth clenched and arms wrapped around his middle, but he kept going as soon as he was able. His mouth was dry as sand, and Donnie would be worse.

.

.

Donnie awoke from a ravenous nightmare to a dark, empty cave.

The terrors from the nightmare still fresh in his mind, everything struck him immediately, body still shivering. Raph – oh Raph. He put his shivering hands over his face, sitting up onto his knees and leaning over to control the waves of despair that began to rock him. It would've been so easy for him to look over and see Raph there with them when he woke up, but he just wasn't, he was missing. He and Mikey –

He looked around, realizing the cave was _empty._

 _MIKEY!_

 _._

 _._

Mikey staggered back in the direction of their little cove as quickly as he could, arms crossed in front of him to carry the most _alive_ foliage he had been able to find. It had taken a quick trip back into the wooded area to find it – Donnie really hadn't gone far into the drylands before Mikey had snapped him out of his daze, and if he could run it would've just been a five minute trip to get there. The problem was, he couldn't, and at the moment, was having trouble walking as it was. Stooping to pull up and dig out the little foliage he'd found had put his side out of commission, possibly for the rest of the day. He had to get back before he collapsed, and besides, he'd heard noises from some of _them_ again...and it wasn't coming from the woods.

What weighed him down far more than exhaustion, though, was that he was unable to find any water in the area of the woods he'd searched. He was so thirsty, but he worried deeply for his brother, and how long it might take them to find water again.

Struggling to walk, one of his knees suddenly gave out and he fell hard onto his other one, jarring his whole middle and dropping what he had with a small yelp of pain. He could've lowered himself and sat down, but opted to drop onto his good side instead, too exhausted. He was only halfway back, but needed to rest for a moment.

His whole body went stiff when his ninja senses suddenly picked up another presence, not bothering to hide itself and approaching him unawares, fast. It was wild and violent, and immediately Mikey went white with fear and wanted to sink into the ground; but the only reason he didn't move was because he didn't hear the growls and cries, he didn't hear anything. He listened, stonily still and silent, with no cover to hide behind but the small hill he'd been approaching.

And suddenly, Donatello was popping out from behind a dead bush at the base of the hill to Mikey's right, violent aura and all, rushing around looking ready to kill somebody and scaring Mikey half to death. But what was even more jarring than this was Donnie's reaction when he caught sight of him, and Mikey swore he saw all the color drain out of his brother's face in an instant.

" _Mikey!_ " Donnie cried in a way that suddenly made him want to sink into the ground again, but he reached out to his brother anyway.

"Donnie, I'm here, it's ok." Mikey said, arms outstretched and barely finishing his sentence before Donnie was sliding in next to him, scooping him into his arms in an embrace that couldn't be broken by the devil himself.

"Donnie, Donnie. I'm sorry, I'm ok, I'm right here." Mikey attempted to console in a quiet voice, arms around his big bother as he let Donnie squeeze and snuggle him and kiss his face, clearly trying to either talk or cry but just choking up on terrified emotions that wouldn't quite come out coherently. After he felt the terror must have died out a little and the relief was coming in to do damage control, Mikey snuggled his face into the crook of Donnie's neck as his brother rocked him, hugging back tightly as he felt his brother's hammering heart in his own chest. He felt terrible. He never meant to stay out this long and worry his big brother like this, letting him wake up with him gone. He hadn't meant to collapse in the first place, he thought reproachfully. He'd have to be more careful to keep this from happening again.

"I'm so sorry." Mikey mumbled into Donnie's shoulder, shamefully nuzzling his nose deeper into hiding as Donnie pressed a terrified kiss into his head. "I'm really ok. I just got tired and couldn't keep going...I must've pushed myself too far. I was just trying to..."

Not letting him try to finish his sentence, Donnie released him just enough to press his forehead against Mikey's, looking intensely into his little brother's baby blue eyes with sharp auburn orbs, and it was then that Mikey realized Donnie was angry...not just angry, _livid._

"I don't know what the _hell_ you were trying to do," He started, voice still low and racked with intense emotion, but hard enough for the fury to be unmistakable; and besides that, Donnie rarely _ever_ cursed, second to their oldest brother only, so the shock made him want to retreat into his shell. "But what in _God's_ name gave you the impression that leaving on your own was a good idea!"

"I, I didn't," Mikey tried to defend himself, retracting his arms against himself momentarily. He wasn't entirely sure how to handle Livid Donnie like this. "What I know is that we're _hungry,_ and if we don't eat anything soon, we're not gonna _last_ that long," He said, pointedly emphasizing the dark side of their dilemma. "We need to be able to wait until the others come to save us, and we need to be able to look for Raph. I made sure it was safe enough to leave for a few minutes, it's not like I wasn't trying to be careful, I didn't hear any of the things anywhere. We haven't eaten in almost three days, and you ran for hours, Donnie, and on a bad ankle – you really need some nourishment to recover –"

"Do _not_ use any of that as an excuse to just _disappear_ with no **notice!** " Donnie nearly roared back, gravelly voice tumbling across the space between them like the beginnings of a storm – Mikey knowing full well the statement was meant as an attack, not a scolding or a warning. Breath hitching in distress, Donnie clamped his eyes shut for a second and pressed his forehead against Mikey's again, and Mikey squeezed his eyes shut, too. "If you thought it was ok to just sneak out for a second while I was asleep because you thought what I didn't know wouldn't matter, you thought that I wouldn't notice, then you are _sorely_ wrong, mister," He continued, red-hot eyes piercing into his little brother's bright blues. The acid green of Raph's furious gaze and storm-like blue of Leo's were terrifying sights to see any day, but in their own way, the intense, dark red that bled through Donnie's auburn ones made him feel far more uncomfortable than either of their older brothers' could.

"It wouldn't matter if I ran for days, I don't care if we hadn't eaten for a week and I was half dead, and I don't _CARE_ if you thought it was safe, or you were trying to be careful! You do _not_ leave my side and sneak off all alone, _PERIOD!_ " Donnie leaned back slightly then in exasperation, looking Mikey over and sputtering a little before continuing, "And what happened, why were you lying on the ground?! Did you get hurt?!" Donnie wrapped Mikey closer to him again in agitated horror, panic increasingly laced through his expression but anger and worry overriding everything, stopping Mikey from being able to calm him down. "What would you have done if anything had found you lying here before I did?! You couldn't even make it back! What if something horrible had happened and I couldn't find you because you'd gone off on your own?!" Ignoring any answer Mikey might've tried to give, he quickly lowered him to the ground to begin inspecting his side. "Hold still, before you hurt yourself worse. I've been concerned about your vertebral column and a possible rupture of your external oblique, I wasn't sure if you'd actually had a complete fracture of any ribs or not because for _God's_ sake if you don't cover it up and try to hide it like those other hotheads – but I should've just gone with my instinct. I should've made you sit down and let me examine you first off so it wouldn't get this far!"

"Donnie, it's just a little – I told you I just – _aaah!_ " Donnie froze when Mikey flinched in sharp pain at just being shifted to the ground, wrapping his arms protectively around his middle. "Don, it's _really_ not that bad, I said just got a little tired and –" Mikey paused for a second at the murderously angry expression that quickly flashed across Donnie's face, and the argumentative one that took its place immediately after – "Ok, no, look – I just, collected a few things to eat, and it took more out of me than I thought it would, and...everything was fine, it just, hurt and, breathing was hard, and my legs gave out...I was just resting for a minute so –"

" _You collapsed from pain!_ " Donnie exclaimed, so panicked that he scooped Mikey back up and immediately scrambled to get up, struggling with his obviously hampered ankle. "We are going back to the cave where it's safer and I am looking at your side, _ASAP._ You are in _BIG. TROUBLE._ "

"Donnie, w-wait!" Mikey practically had to drag his fingers in the ground to get Donnie to slow down. "The plants! I picked them for us to eat,"

Donnie's head whipped in the direction Mikey was struggling toward, clearly intending to only spare it a brief glance before rushing off, but he paused, and Mikey thought it might've been the only thing in the world that could've made him. For the briefest of moments, his eyes went soft, looking sadly at the wilted plants on the ground and really paying them more than a second of attention since he got there. He sighed, and fumbled back two paces to quickly scoop them back into Mikey's arms in three handfuls. Planting a kiss into Mikey's cheek, he cradled him tight against him and hurried back off toward their little cove as quickly as he could.

.

.

By the time they approached near their little cave, Donnie was hobbling badly, and it didn't take much effort for Mikey to finally drop himself out of his brother's arms and immediately turn to grab hold of him, attempting to support him the rest of the way. Instantaneously the feeling of fire in his side came back again, and he was being barraged with outrageous protest.

" _Mikey,_ the _HELL!_ – You are _not_ allowed on your feet! Climb up onto my back before I throw you there," Donnie said, his voice dark with the last threat to let Mikey know he wasn't joking.

Gritting his teeth, Mikey continued marching forward with his brother with a scowl of pain and irritation as he said, "Y'know, Donnie, sometimes you say stuff that sounds _really_ ridiculous."

"I'm not making suggestions, Mikey," Donnie warned, a shadow fallen across his face, and eyes sharp as he looked directly at his little brother, hauling back in an attempt to stop them and grab hold of Mikey.

"Well, I'm not taking orders!" Mikey shot back, matching his older brother's challenging glare with his own. Tension between them immediately spiked up a couple hundred miles high, and both put a good few inches between each other in case either unexpectedly went after the other.

Their older brothers fought a lot. They fought and argued and disagreed about the best way to keep their family safe, because they were scared, and worried, and high-strung and trying to fight monsters that didn't always exist, and they tended to do this far more often than the youngest two. The youngest two didn't, not nearly as much, and they knew that, so if they were fighting, angrily, and seriously, something was _very_ wrong.

"Need I remind you? _Two hours,_ when it's already sprained or worse, Donnie! And just now, when you should've been trying to recover from that, you go running around like a CRAZY person!" Mikey careened momentarily on one heel in order to wave his arms in emphasis, stamping his foot in frustration when he came down in a motion he _prayed_ would look silly, because a huge fight with his big brother was the _last_ thing either of them needed. But his brother was hurt, and he still needed to make sure that point got across, before Donnie permanently damaged himself. He needed room to carry them forward.

" _Me?_ ME!" Donnie actually started laughing, disbelief painfully clear in his voice. "I'M not the one who's in danger of _puncturing_ their _lung!_ " Donnie clenched his fists, but it was anxiety that coupled the anger in his eyes. "I swear to _everything_ good and holy, Mikey, if you don't come here, right _now –_ "

Mikey was half-jumping away with a protest halfway out of his mouth, when they both suddenly heard a retched cry in the distance – _much_ closer than they'd noticed before.

Both brothers froze, and were staring in that direction for a full minute after in silence, listening for more noises and how far away the ones they heard were. Their thoughts both went to the same place at once – the little cave in the ground they stood in front of was not very well sheltered, and neither were their surroundings. The cave was somewhat deeper than the first small crevice they had hidden in on their first night as a group of three, but if something large with sharp teeth went digging into it...

And then Mikey wasn't on his feet anymore, he was being hauled back inside their little cave by his oldest brother, who was whispering harshly – "Come on, _now_."

They stumbled inside their little shelter, pressed against a side wall and sat there for another while longer, listening, younger brother protectively clamped inside the older's arms. The sounds came a little closer, not close enough that they could have seen the monsters if they looked out the entrance, but too close for comfort. Donnie turned to Mikey, seriousness in his eyes.

"Keep quiet," He whispered, barely audible. "I'm gonna check your side really quick, ok? I have to know how bad it is in case we need to get out of here soon. Don't make any noise, and _please,_ don't fight me."

Mikey's eyes went a little wider, laying the little bundle of plants aside as an excuse to lean away from his brother before he was trapped, thoughts racing.

"I _really_ don't think this is a good time, bro –"

"When would be a good time, then? Never?" Donnie asked, sarcasm and bitterness dripping from his voice.

"Don't, it really hurts, Don."

His brother scowled. "Funny, you were trying to convince me otherwise ten minutes ago."

"It'll hurt more if you start prodding at it. I won't be able to keep silent if you poke it in a bad place."

Mikey gestured at the entrance of their cavern with a glance, knowing he didn't really have to. Donnie's eyes narrowed as he crawled closer.

"If you start making noise, Mikey, I _swear._ "

"Then don't start prying at my injuries!" Mikey gave a harsh whisper back, and he couldn't have asked for the distant yowl they heard right then, as if on cue.

Something in Donnie's eyes went sharp and dark, though, and something inside of Mikey tucked tail and ran away, causing _all_ of his bravado to tank. He shrank under his big brother's approach, watching him nervously.

"I am _not_ playing games with you, Michelangelo." His voice was low and serious, and Mikey sighed, submitting to his brother's careful arms as they crowded him in. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I have to check, just like I checked Raph's shoulder, and how I'm gonna do it again as _soon_ as we find him, and how we're gonna check what my ankle needs when we get back to the Ulixes. And I know you know this, so stop being _stubborn,_ " He said, unlatching Mikey's waist strap with probably a little more force than necessary. "You know I've been worried about your side, I cannot _believe_ you hid how bad it was from me like this. You should know you could've died, don't you?"

"Donnie, don't." Mikey grumpily stared at the ground in defeat, not meeting his brother's scrutiny in the eye. "We all could've died. Besides, I would've told you if I thought I was in trouble."

"You _should've_ told me as soon as you noticed it hurt badly," Donnie grumbled, an edge in his voice as he carefully, gently went over the surrounding areas first, trying to determine the extent of the damage. Mikey grit his teeth and nervously looked out the entrance of their cave instead, where the sounds from the creatures hadn't gone away yet. How long would it take to wait them out? Could he wait that long? Should they even try? He doubted he'd convince Donnie to get any rest before they went looking for Raph, really. And they would _both_ go looking for Raph, no matter what Donnie tried to say about –

" _Aah!_ "

He clapped his hands over his mouth, freezing in horrified panic at his own outcry, and Donnie was startling back and leaping forward to protectively wrap him up tight against him almost at the same time.

They both sat there frozen again, staring out the entrance of their cave as they silently listened. A piqued whine seemed to come from somewhere, but the noise didn't lead to any activity or increased howls, so the brothers felt allowed to wrench a couple muscles out of the places they'd frozen themselves.

Donnie was sighing quietly when he turned back to Mikey, an odd sort of hesitant concern in his eyes. "It hurts there?"

Mikey almost snorted with laughter, because it was such an obvious question that Donnie might as well have asked, "You're not exaggerating, are you?" outright. But he also felt bad, because there was also frustration and deep worry on his brother's face, and he could tell his brother already knew perfectly well without asking.

He simply nodded, watching the gears turn in Donnie's head as his eyes flickered with complex thoughts and concern. After a minute of silent, critical thinking, listening to the fading sounds outside, Donnie finally turned his head back to the cave's entrance with a low sound, and in the blackness of the night, the shadows made his brother seem even more serious and intimidating, sharpness in his dark expression.

"I'll have to wait until it's safer, then. But until then," He continued, turning back to Mikey, and the younger brother stared stonily at the expression glaring down at him, frozen in place by a vague understanding that flinching might indicate a full-on assault. "You are _not,_ and I repeat, _**NOT**_ allowed to push yourself – and I'm gonna be _watching_ you, for your information. No carrying anybody, and NO more going off to places without letting me know," He said, a flash of anger running across his face, and Mikey shamefully hunched his shoulders and clenched his eyes shut.

Then there was a sigh, exasperated and full of concern and soft, and Mikey looked back up at his big brother, who finally dropped his arms from around him. Neither said anything, but the look said enough to the youngest brother, and he chuckled a little nervously and stuck his tongue out at the older. Donnie actually cracked a grin, lightly pushing Mikey's head to the side.

"Doofus."

"But I'm _you're_ doofus."

And then Donnie laughed a little, and it was the warmest sound Mikey had heard in days. "Yes, you are."

Donnie looked past him then, eyeing something with confusion, and Mikey glanced back to see the plants he'd brought with him.

"Do you actually know if those are edible, by the way?"

Mikey turned back to his brother with a big smile. "Well, the sample I tried earlier hasn't made me sick yet."

Donnie groaned and rolled his eyes.

.

.

The two decided the best course of action would be to move from their location while they still had the cover of nightfall. There was no time to rest, Donnie insisted, when they appeared to be so close to the monsters, and they at least needed to try and find safer territory. Donnie was initially worried about Mikey eating the God-knows-what-kind of plants, but after doing his own inspection, decided the need was more urgent than the risk. More than anything, the stalks were still alive, and they needed the water inside them before they dried up totally.

After that, once Mikey re-latched his belt, they were immediately on the move.

Donnie held his hand up to signal for Mikey to stay where he was as he crept to the cave entrance and peeked outside. After listening in silence for a moment, he motioned with his head but didn't move, so Mikey quietly crept up behind him.

"I want you close to me at all times," Donnie whispered seriously. "I need to know you're with me, so I'm gonna hold onto you until I know we're safe. Don't you let go for anything, you hear me?"

Mikey nodded, eyes large and anxious as he looked up at his brother.

Donnie nodded back, reaching out and grabbing his hand. Then both brothers quickly slipped out, sinking into the darkness outside.

They ran at first, silent as they were physically capable of. Mikey couldn't help but watch his brother's ankle from behind, noticing his brother's hobbled gait and every flinch of pain. Eventually he couldn't make himself watch anymore, hurting for his brother too much to look. How Donnie was still _running,_ or how much pain he was sucking up right then, or if he had too much adrenaline to even feel it, he'd never know.

The distant howls came from both the woods behind them and the dry, cracked lands ahead, so Donnie steered towards the woods where they'd last seen their brother, and stopped behind a sandy hill where the ground turned grainier as they approached. However, the sounds stretched across the line of trees ahead, and Donnie scoffed, unable to find a safe way to approach.

"We need to go back in there." He mumbled, talking mostly to himself, by the sounds of it, and sounding deeply troubled.

Mikey tugged at Donnie's arm, looking up at him with wide eyes when Donnie turned. "As long as Raph is out there, I'm not afraid of them, Donnie." He said, voice low and quiet. "But they're too close. I think if we go back in there now, they'll smell us."

Donnie nodded, looking down at him. "Looks that way. We'll just have to go the other way for now and see if there aren't any caves out here a little further out of danger."

Mikey gave his brother an encouraging smile. "Yeah. And who knows, Raph might've been driven out this way too."

Donnie gave his hand an affirmative squeeze, quickly checking the area behind them before they darted off again, just shadows in the darkness. Mikey looked worriedly back at the forest, all dead and black, seeming to moan with evil and dread, and thought of their older brother. There was no telling where he'd ended up, but maybe he'd had the same idea as Donnie. He sure hoped so.

A jerk of his hand made him turn forward again, and all of a sudden he was being pulled to the ground, but Donnie let go, careening down while Mikey stumbled over himself and almost did the same.

"Donnie?!" Mikey scrambled to the ground and rested worried hands on his brother.

"I-I'm ok, I...I just tripped." Donnie groaned and pushed himself up again, trying to dust some of the dirt off, but Mikey dove down an inspected his ankle, making him start back. "Hey, I said I was –"

"Donnie, for God's sake," Mikey interrupted, glaring his brother down with wildly worried eyes. "You _can't_ keep pushing it! You chew me out about my side, but won't even let me support you? I can't even see it that well in the darkness but I can _tell_ how bad it's gotten!"

"Mikey, don't fuss over it like I'm the only one that's hurt. I can put up with –"

" _Donnie._ " Mikey insisted, making his brother pause, and making sure the frustrated seriousness of his stare reached his brother. He gently lifted his ankle up, as if he couldn't see it himself, and didn't break his stony gaze. "It's swollen twice its normal size. It's blackened and bruised, and half of the things we wrapped it up with before have already been ripped off. It feels hot, it's oozing a little and I'm sure you agree, it's _probably_ broken. You don't stand on it if you can help it, and watching you try to keep a straight face when you limp on it physically _hurts_ me."

Instead of trying to argue, Donnie gave his own glare back, so Mikey continued. "I am _supporting_ your bad side until we find a safe place to stop. Your bad side isn't on my bad side."

Donnie scowled, defiantly getting up onto his knees and staring back. "Mikey, I know you're worried, and I really don't mean to make you. I appreciate the concern, but please, supporting me would just be too much strain, and we _can't_ put any extra pressure on your middle whatsoever. I can't stand to watch you limp around either, and nothing on earth could make me continue if I even thought I was putting you in pain – you'd have to force me. We can go slower if that helps, but I can still walk ok myself." Trying to end it there, Donnie dragged himself back up on one leg, saying, "Please come on, we can't sit here out in the open like –"

"I can do that."

"What? Mi – _HEY!_ "

Hauling Donnie straight off his feet, Mikey heaved his much bigger big brother over his shoulder, gritting his teeth and trying to drown his brain in the mantra of _right, left, right, left_ – but Donnie struggled too hard, and was back down fairly soon, gripping the younger by the arms in a furious panic.

Between the worry and the exasperation, Donnie was _seething,_ and Mikey was suddenly seriously doubting that was a good idea." _Michelangelo Hamato,_ I am about to tie you up with your own waste belt and haul you off _myself_ – make no mistake, I _can_ throw you over my back, and I _will._ If you try that again –"

But suddenly Donnie whipped his head around, interrupting himself, and Mikey's stomach was dropping like a stone before he could even wonder what his brother had sensed. He looked off into the woods where Donnie was staring, and –

All the blood felt as if it washed from his body and straight down out of his toes. One pair of beady red eyes stared back at them from the woods.

"..ey...Mikey!"

Mikey flinched, realizing his brother was whispering at him, and Donnie backed up a little closer to him, tightly taking hold of his hand again without turning around or looking away.

"Is that the thing you saw a few days ago?"

Mikey gave a stiff, small nod, pulling himself closer to his brother. "Yeah."

The small red eyes were different from the black, featureless faces of the inky monsters hunting them, but somehow, they were _so_ much worse. They stared unwaveringly at the pair, clearly focused on them, and it sent such cold chills down both of their spines. It only took a glance to tell they belonged to something malicious, and it made Donnie actually have to wonder if they should run or just dig a hole in the ground, since the thing wasn't moving.

"Mikey," He whispered again, backing up a step, "We're gonna try to leave slowly. I don't know if it's like those other things, but we don't appear to threaten it, maybe it'll leave us alone."

Mikey nodded tightly again, not caring his brother couldn't see him, as they both started backing away. The edge of the woods was still about a hundred feet away from where they stood, which made it all the weirder that the creature had noticed them at all – but hopefully, if they walked too far away to see, it wouldn't come chasing after –

All at once, the eyes disappeared, like they'd never been there.

Both brothers froze, all senses on high-alert. Donnie ducked his head slightly, a motion Mikey knew meant he was going into a slight meditative mode in order to highten his ninja-senses, and he stood silently beside his brother, scanning the woods wide-eyed. A serious chill went racing through him. The thing probably just walked away, or looked somewhere else, or anything really, and they shouldn't be so spooked. After all, if it had left, that was a good thing, but –

Mikey's body went totally stiff when an intense shiver wracked his _whole_ body. Terrible foreboding vibes and a haunted, icy sort of coldness pervaded his senses, and an image of the first clearing they'd found as a group of three went through his mind. It felt just the same, cold to his bones except _so_ much stronger and they needed to get _away –_

He stared up at Donnie, who shivered once and looked around. "I've got a bad feeling –"

Mikey tugged his arm, making his brother look back at him, and Donnie's curious expression became much more alarmed when he saw whatever sort of expression Mikey had. " _Donnie –_ "

But he cut himself off when whispering suddenly surrounded them, and Donnie and Mikey practically dove for each other, looking wildly around to identify the source. It came from all around them, though, so many rough voices whispering all at once that it was mostly unintelligible – mostly, except for a few words that got through, like " _It's here_ ", " _Never get to_ ", and " _Death_ ".

Donnie tensed and opened his mouth, about to tell Mikey they needed to run, he thought – but he didn't get a chance, because something _huge_ and _DARK_ appeared right behind them in a _snap_ Mikey would've missed if he'd blinked, and he jumped so suddenly that Donnie was spinning around.

If the monsters were three times as tall as Donnie, this thing was six, and so much larger in body. Surrounded by whispers and painful moans and shrieks and laughter that filled the vibrating air, it was colored black instead of being covered in the ink-like substance of the other monsters, it had hooks and horns all about its body and a spiny back that traveled down the length of a powerful tail – and those red eyes, which seemed to stare right through them with this absence and _hunger_ that had Mikey suddenly finding himself wanting to pray for their survival.

The brothers held tight onto each other, frozen with fear and staring at the horrible beast when it started speaking, a deep, twisted voice they heard booming in their heads more than with their ears, whispering and screaming at them at the same time with more voices than one in a language they didn't understand.

Mikey buried his face in Donnie's chest, petrified to his soul and tears streaming down his face, looking at the creature sidelong because he was too afraid to look away. Donnie was no less terrified, shaking all over and crying too, holding onto Mikey with unbreakable strength. And then the monster did something horrible – it shivered and shook, its horrible facial features convoluting into one of intense rage in a snap-like motion. Its head trembled and turned up-side-down, and kept going until it hand turned all the way right-side up again; and when it had, the whispering-screaming voice in their ears boomed, " _It shall come to pass: you shall learn to hate, and then you shall perish in the fires of Hades._ "

Fire exploded all around them, and the brothers screamed. The monster roared, flashing in and out of sight, a few inches closer and then a few inches back again, randomly teleporting back and forth in front of them screaming and whaling. Donnie held Mikey tight against him with the strength of steel, glaring up at the monster with a burning light in his teary auburn eyes.

Finally the monster roared again, his whole body erupting in flames, and he threw fireballs at the brothers with violent swings of his arms. Donnie jumped, wrapping as tightly around Mikey as possible as the flames washed over them.

Mikey felt them hit the ground, and was moving again a lot faster than his brother was; and with sudden panic, and horror, and an internal sensation of death, he realized Donnie wasn't moving at all. Breathlessly diving down to his brother, he saw the charring and burns that now covered his already-scuffed, injury-riddled body, and steam still rose off both them from passing through the flames – but it only took a quick second to find his brother's vitals, and for an instant, Mikey was collapsing over him in tearful relief. Just as fast, he was threw Donnie up onto his back, and _ran_.

The creature chased them for a short distance, and Mikey felt flames at his feet as he shot off deeper into the desert-like landscape; but soon they were gone, and so was he.

* * *

A/N: That's right, Donnie called both Raph AND Leo hot-heads. (Because they are) (evil laughter)

I'm trying to prepare myself for the TMNT2012 series to end, but it's not going well. XD I'm afraid everyone's gonna lose interest in tmnt fics when the show ends (it would make sense to me, anyway) and trying to imagine not having a reason to write these fics anymore or seeing anyone talking about the series feels really boring and lonely. I'm not really as big a fan of anything else at the moment and I went through some Times and made some amazing online friends over the course of this series. I'm such a huge nerd I guess, but this one is gonna be tough for me. :P

Still, I'm planning on finishing this story (and sort of continue it in a second post-demon-world fic maybe?.?.?.?) and hopefully Mikey's Escape From New York, and I hope you guys are still enjoying this :)

(also, what does everyone think about all the chaos that just happened here? O_O)

ANNDDD ALSOOOO to CharmGirlLove, sorry it took me this long to see your question, I feel like some reviews take a while to show up or I might have missed it, but it is a very valid question to which my answer is:

I fucking forgot they were wearing all that space shit, let's pretent that all flew off when they were crashing too X'D


	9. Chapter 9

Donnie groaned, pain bursting all over his body when he came to consciousness.

He shifted his head and felt leather under it, but he was laying in dirt. He took a second to get his senses to stop spinning a little before he cracked an eye open, and a blur of green and orange in the dark sent his memory washing back like an ice bath.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to sit up, attempting to focus on his little brother, who was staring in the opposite direction before quickly snapping his head around. "Mikey? What – are you –"

" _Donnie,_ " Mikey exclaimed, rushing toward him, and gently making him lay back down before diving in with a trembling hug, all but melting. Donnie let out a deep sigh of relief, squeezing Mikey tight and burying his face in his shoulder; just having his little brother in his arms made the slight burns on his middle feel better. Mikey was here, and he seemed to be in one piece, at the very least, and Donnie tried to soak up this information and relax a little. Where were they?

Mikey sighed, pulling himself away from the hug – immediately something seemed off to the older brother, but he was still too dazed to focus on what – to double-check Donnie's injuries. Donnie tried to reach out to halt the youngest, but was too weak – he didn't want Mikey fussing over him, exasperating whatever pain he was most likely in too; he just wanted to sit quietly with him for a moment, shield him and hide away from all the madness – inside of this cave, where they appeared to be; which cave, in what location, though, he had no idea.

"Mikey," Donnie finally asked, "What happened?"

He stared up into Mikey's face with deep concern, because his little brother looked haunted, and started looking over his shoulder again – and now that Donnie was really looking at him, he seemed even worse than before; pale, dirty, exhausted and paranoid, and patched with soot and small burns from their fire bath earlier.

Mikey returned the gaze with deep blue eyes, and started to reply, but paused when they heard the cry of a monster somewhere in the distance – _more monsters._ Donnie couldn't believe after all this, they were still in hot water.

Mikey looked slightly more apologetic this time. "You passed out during the attack, so I took you and ran here. This was the only shelter I could find, even though..." Mikey sighed, pausing with another small look over his shoulder. Donnie had so many questions suddenly buzzing into his mind, but couldn't seem to pick one to ask, his anxiety rising. "...Make sure and keep your voice down. And don't move too much, you're in really bad shape, Don."

"Bad shape? What are you –" Donnie tried to sit up again, but cringed when he found out what his little brother meant, Mikey already trying to coax him back down. He started scooting over to a large boulder to lean against instead, grabbing what he realized had been Mikey's waist strap pillowing his head while he went, and Mikey stiffly helped him over.

He let out a sigh and slumped against the boulder, Mikey sitting beside him reaching out with worried hands. Donnie was far worse off with the burns than Mikey was, and for that at least, he was relieved. But _damn_ did they hurt, and so did his ankle, too – which Mikey had doctored and re-wrapped with what bandages they had left while his big brother couldn't stop him; but his ankle was probably in much better shape for it than it would've been without. And he had a _sore_ need for water, one that he'd been trying to ignore, but it was getting too bad to do that.

Other than that, and the incredible pain that hammered through his body, Donnie considered himself to have come out enormously lucky. His younger brother, though –

Wait.

"You carried me and ran all the way here?!"

Mikey blinked at him with a blank expression for a moment, and then he was flinching back. "Donnie, I had to –"

"ARE YOU HURT?! Christ, of course you are! Come here, where does it hurt?! How bad is it?! How far did you have to run?!"

Mikey was trying to lean away as he blurted out his defenses, but Donnie had him fairly quickly. "Donnie, I – please, don't, it really – _ow!_ "

Donnie froze his inspection of Mikey's side when he let out a weak cry of agony, like he'd kicked an injured dog. He leaned heavily against Donnie's shoulder, and when a tear rolled down his cheek, Donnie realized it was because he hurt too much to hold himself upright anymore.

"Mikey, Mikey, I'm sorry. Shh-sh, it's ok, just lean this way – there, that's better. Oh, Mikey..." Donnie held him as tight as he dared, supporting and rocking his trembling, hurting little brother as he whimpered and tried to dam the tears back again. As soon as Mikey's pain started to ebb away again, Donnie pulled him closer, resting his head on the younger's.

"I'm so sorry, little bro." He continued. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I should've been more careful, you must be in so much pain. Just don't move, ok?"

"It's ok, Donnie." Mikey mumbled from Donnie's shoulder. "It's just gotten bad because I overworked it...I didn't really warn you. I just need to let it rest for a bit before we start moving again..."

Donnie huffed a sigh, giving him a light squeeze. "We won't be moving again for a good while, count on it." After a moment, he glanced down again to look at Mikey curiously, awful shame and regret having begun to consume him. "When did I pass out? I don't remember what...I can't believe I did something so stupid that you would've had to...!"

"Donnie, don't." Mikey firmly pressed against Donnie, as if defiantly combatting the shame taking over his older brother. "It's not like any of that was your fault, don't start thinking crazy stuff. You saved our lives." Mikey looked up into Donnie's face, and some of the anxiety his wide blue eyes finally made sense. "You used your body to protect me. You wrapped around me so the brunt of the fire hit you, and of _course_ you passed out, you could've _died._ And I'm so glad that...that you..."

Mikey closed his eyes again, fiercely fighting back tears, but Donnie already knew, and he hugged Mikey tight, shaking his head with a horrendous mix of horror, relief and awe.

"I'm just glad you made it away." Donnie said, his voice quiet and comforting, tracing circles on his shivering brother's shell to soothe him. "I'm sorry I couldn't get us to a safe place, but I'm so glad you escaped that – thing, whatever it was. I'm so glad it didn't hurt you any worse. And I promise," He cupped Mikey's face in his hands, looking at him sincerely and his voice hovering just over a whisper – trying to reassure himself just as much as his younger brother. "We _will_ find Raph, and it _will_ be ok."

Mikey wrapped the arm of his good side around Donnie's neck and buried his head against him, and Donnie couldn't help but feel like Mikey was doing it to comfort _him._ Breathing out a short sigh, he wrapped his arms around his younger brother in return and tried to rest in the stillness for a few moments. Immediately, his mind went to work over the best way to proceed from here. Clearly, Mikey was in deep suffering, and he was afraid he already knew all he was going to know about it without potentially hurting him worse by investigating. The side of his shell was starting to show bad bruising, and Donnie was terribly afraid that this might indicate internal bleeding, on top of who knew whatever else – but it could've just as easily been external bruising from the trauma his wound had been through since he got it. After all, his baby brother had been sucking it up instead of telling them when it was in critical condition and needed attention, and _STILL_ hadn't let him look at it very well, he thought with a scowl. Maybe he had a point, though – that the place they were in was just too dangerous for Donnie to spend the time and effort to really get a good assessment of the damage and actually do anything about it. Mikey needed rest, more than anything, and Donnie probably did too – but _then,_ he was getting a thorough check-up from Doctor Don, and would NOT be allowed any sort of physical exertion until then, or any time after. Donnie grimaced – they might even have a heart-to-heart discussion about his recent issues with cooperation, too. His face twisted in frustration. The youngest had been acting so unusually rebellious lately – and he didn't think he could even blame Raph for it. What was Mikey thinking? Didn't he know what kind of danger...

Why did his neck feel so much better now?

He froze in curiosity and the smallest amount of panic, and when Mikey sensed this, he looked in his big brother's face, then all but jumped back.

" _Je_ sus, Mikey –" Donnie was immediately reaching out to the younger in terrible worry at his sudden movement, but was cut off.

"Y-your neck. Does it feel any different? Any better?" And without waiting for an answer, Mikey was back again to inspect it, going over the burns with unsteady hands.

"Uh – yeah, I guess, for some reason." Donnie took hold of Mikey's hands and brought the younger back down in front of him, holding him captive there and looking sincerely in his eyes. "Mikey, what's going on? Is everything ok?"

The anxiety in Mikey's face however was quickly turning to excitement, amidst a bit of panic, confusing Donnie further. "When we escaped, your injuries were so bad, Donnie, you were bleeding, and all burnt and – and – I didn't know what to do, it was so bad I was afraid to do anything and make it worse. When we got here, though, somehow the burns looked like they'd started receding, and it didn't look so bad. I started trying to wrap up your ankle, and all of a sudden the burns on your ankle started healing way faster than the rest."

Donnie looked down at his own ankle in surprise, and a little hope. He fidgeted his foot slightly, and while a horrible twinge of pain brought the disappointment that his previous injury was still there, it did indeed seem burn-free. Donnie turned back to Mikey in shock, and Mikey returned a look of apprehensive exhilaration.

"I didn't know why it did that or how to make it keep going, so I just tried to treat your worst ones as much as I could. It was like a miracle, Donnie – all I did was try to clean them and stop the bleeding, but after a while, I didn't have to worry about what would happen to you. I didn't understand it, but everything I gave attention to healed faster...but I was just too exhausted, I fell asleep –"

Immediately, Donnie grabbed Mikey around the middle and pulled him in close, the move so abrupt that Mikey yelped in surprise. They stayed that way for a minute in silence, until Donnie slowly eased him back down, looking on in worry.

"Does it feel any different? Is the pain changing at all?"

Mikey stared for a moment in surprise, before his expression turned sad, but somehow glowed with amusement and warmth, too. "No, not really."

Donnie's face fell too, but after a second, he made a small grin. "Well, at least it helps the burns. Somehow, for whatever reason." His face twisted into such utterly hopeless confusion in the next instant that Mikey started laughing. The youngest couldn't imagine what was going through their resident doctor's head. Twitching in pain, he cut his own laughter off, grimacing at the fire in his side, and Donnie suddenly and worriedly pulled him back in, forbidding any further movement. With a sigh, he wrapped his arms around the back of Donnie's, where some of the worst burns were still healing.

"Thanks for trying anyway, big bro." He said. Donnie smiled down at him, until Mikey continued, looking up. "That means you gotta sit here and rest until your burns have healed, though."

Donnie immediately scoffed. " _Me, I_ need to sit here and rest? You oughta get a load of yourself, buster."

Donnie poked Mikey's muzzle, which stung initially, giving him a jolt of surprise – but Donnie was smirking, and he realized his muzzle had been a little charred. He giggled sheepishly, stiffly leaning against his older brother again, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, trying to rest.

Mikey tried to subdue the shivering pain that had been skyrocketing ever since he'd started moving again, and cemented himself to prevent Donnie from detecting any trembles until they died back down to a place where they were manageable again. Tucking his head under the older's chin, he tried to distract himself with his thoughts. Like, _what was that thing?_

He hadn't had time to wonder before, with his brother's life so much heavier on his mind. But that creature's eyes were seared into his memory. He saw them in the corners of his vision when he was running and heard the echoes of its horrible multi-language, multi-person voice down in the black depths of this cave. For all the millions of questions he had, the most prominent ones were, _what,_ and _why?_

He looked at Donnie, and it couldn't be clearer they were thinking about the same thing.

" _It shall come to pass: you shall learn to hate, and then you shall perish in the fires of Hades._ " Donnie repeated, his voice quizzical and his expression serious. "What did it mean by that?"

"I wish I knew," Mikey said, sighing. "And what languages was it speaking before it switched to English?"

Both brothers shuddered, remembering the process it went through to "switch". Grimacing, Donnie said, "I...I don't know. It didn't sound like anything I've ever heard. I picked up something that I thought sounded ancient but...far more ancient than we have much history about." His expression crumpled uncertainly and the two sat quietly, looking troubled.

Mikey nodded silently. He couldn't shake the memory of the terrible, piercing cold that infiltrated his system in the clearing and in the monster's presence. It had felt the same both times, only much worse the second. The horrible, screeching voices of the ink monsters was stuck in his head, too, something about them being far too _off_ to put aside. He didn't like anything about this place. If it wasn't eerily silent, it was filled with strange, unnatural sounds that could've been coming from anything. Everything about this planet felt – black, a thick, unnatural, out-of-place kind of pitch black that shouldn't be there. He shivered and looked up at Donnie, who he realized was giving him a familiarly curious look.

It was the same thoughtful, quiet gaze that all his brothers gave him when they wanted his opinion. The four had been thrown into wild situations far over their heads before, and when they were left feeling around in the dark, Mikey was usually the one left with the best instincts, and it had saved their shells a few different times that he could recall. Donnie wanted to know what he thought.

Mikey shut his eyes anxiously and dropped his head against Donnie's plastron, his voice dropping to a mumble. "That one – all of them – I don't think they've left us alone for so long by any choice of their own. I feel like they must've already been occupied by...something else. I don't know what they are, or what this place is. But we're intruding on something way, _way_ bigger than us. If any one of those things gets a hold of us..." Mikey looked up at Donnie with owlish, spooked eyes. "We shouldn't be here."

His voice dropped to a whisper at the last comment, and a shiver went down both their spines. Letting out a sharp sigh, Donnie squeezed Mikey tighter against him, a growing pang in his heart. Mikey looked out the entrance of the cave, his blue eyes damming oceans of tears. _"Raph."_

Turning his head back, he buried his face in Donnie's neck, the sobs too strong to fight. Donnie dug his muzzle into Mikey's shoulder, trembling with terrible emotion.

"I swear," Donnie whispered, squeezing his little brother tight. "We _will_ find Raph. And it will be ok."

Mikey cried harder, latched tightly onto Donnie, and Donnie cocooned around him, putting as much supportive pressure on his side as he dared. He swore on everything he knew, he would find their older brother, if it was the last thing he did...because he'd absolutely die if they couldn't.

.

.

.

It was evening of the same day before Donnie even dared consider that they should try to move again. Mikey had fallen asleep crying in Donnie's arms, but Donnie was relieved to think he'd at least felt secure enough to fall asleep at all. Mikey hadn't rested at all the previous night, and ran for hours with his big brother on his back when he shouldn't have been able to walk properly, so the exhaustion was evident as soon as his nerves and adrenaline fizzled out. Donnie shuddered to think Mikey might've never slept at all, if he hadn't been there – there was no way he would've felt safe enough to let his guard down alone. Again, felt a horrible twist of pain for Raph, and he snuggled his baby brother closer to his chest and leaned his head back against the cave wall, closing his eyes.

Trying to relax, he began a breathing mantra while his mind worked over their next course of action. The distant sounds of the monster-demon-animals had never ceased since he'd woken up in this cave earlier that day, and he could only assume that they were near a much more highly concentrated dwelling area, if such a thing really existed. The idea terrified him, and every once in a while one would sound like it was coming uncomfortably close, and he and Mikey had sat in silence and hardly dared to breathe until it went away. Their burns were mostly healed already, leaving only scuffs and scorch burns, except where the worst scalding on the backs of his arms were still healing, but they were in terrible condition and he wasn't sure how long either of them could stand on their own feet. Fortunately, Donnie had rested his ankle long enough that he thought he could put up with the pain well enough to walk, and Mikey seemed to be able to so long as he didn't do anything strenuous, but he wondered how far. Either way, Donnie was going to use the excuse to keep Mikey close while they were in such a dangerous area, because they needed to _move._

Mikey groaned in sleep, and after a moment was rubbing his eyes.

"Hey, little brother," Donnie said, grinning down at the younger turtle as he looked up at Donnie.

"Hey." Mikey mumbled, voice heavy with sleep, and Donnie chuckled, wiping a dirt smear away from his cheek.

"How 'ya feeling?"

Mikey grumbled something unintelligible, and Donnie watched him with worry. "Do you think you could move soon?"

Mikey looked back up at him at this, eyes a little wider, and there was a fire in the baby blues that surprised Donnie.

"Are we looking for Raph?"

Donnie blinked, then smiled confidently, and in the growing darkness that cast shadows across their faces, Mikey smiled back.

"We've waited long enough. We should move before anything else gets a chance to." Donnie said. "Let's find our brother."

.

.

It was only a few minutes later that Donnie was instructing them through a few simple, gentle stretch exercises, to pre-determine the current limits to their range of movement, and try to build their strength back up in preparation to move quickly.

"We need to be extremely careful," Donnie said, stiffly moving through an exercise with Mikey, keeping a sharp eye on the smaller brother's side and supporting it once in a while. "We _cannot_ let the monsters detect us, so we're going to have to go into full-stealth mode." He stood straight, pushing fists into the back of his shell to stretch. "Firstly, we need to scope out the area to make sure it's safe to move, and see if we can find any water. Then we head back to the woods, and use every tracking tactic we know."

Mikey and Donnie looked at each other anxiously, regretting – on top of many other things – that their best tracker was not there. Mikey, however, was grateful that at least the consistently second-best was with him.

"While we're in the woods, we'll look for something we can both use for crutches. If he's not still in the woods, we'll make our best guess where he went, and go there. And if – for any heaven-forbidden reason – we get split up, we meet at the first cave we found in the woods. Got it?"

Mikey nodded. "If we can't find him in the woods, we should go back to the canyon and get some water there before moving on."

"You're right. I'm amazed that's the only place we've found any," Donnie scratched his head doubtfully, before putting a hand on Mikey's shoulder. "Again though, while we're out there, please –"

"Keep low, move fast, be quiet, I know." Mikey grinned, and Donnie returned it.

"And stay _close_ to me," He emphasized, grabbing Mikey's hand in preparation to go. "The same thing applies as before, ok? Don't you dare get out of my sight for one second – hold on to me at all times. Let's go."

.

.

Mikey gritted his teeth as they moved, simmering.

He stared at the opposite cave wall while Donnie looked outside, checking extra carefully for any nearby presence. He breathed deeply, flinched when his side flared, looked to make sure Donnie didn't notice, and scowled at himself.

He wasn't completely sure why, all of a sudden, he felt so angry. He should've protected Donnie from that fire-breathing monster, not the other way around – but he'd already known that. And his side HURT. In fact, ever since he'd started moving again, the pain in his middle was traveling through his whole body in such a way that he'd be trembling now if he wasn't forcing it down.

How could he properly protect Donnie this way? Moreover, had they lost Raph because of this, too?

Donnie's ankle was broken, and they had such a long way to travel. His big brother's limping still made him wince, and he fought the urge to pull his brother's arm around his shoulders in favor of waiting for a better time, when he could convince Donnie to let him support his ankle. And Raph – who knew what kind of state he was in, if he was even alive. Not that he couldn't be alive, but – but...it shouldn't have happened.

They shouldn't have –...

He groaned, pushing that thought away, again, to the back of his mind. They most likely would've died if they'd turned back. He couldn't stay angry about it – it wouldn't help. All they needed to focus on was finding Raph again. He might be waiting for them. He had to be.

What even _were_ these things?

His scowl deepened, fighting the instincts screaming at him to dig a hole in the ground and hide, tightening his grip on Donnie's hand. He would not allow anyone else to get hurt.

As soon as he'd thought it, the two of them were sliding through the black night as quickly as they could behind a rock formation near the multitude of monster sounds they heard in the distance.

He heard Donnie give a sudden gasp, both in awe and terror, at the place they were in.

They were very close to what could only be described as an earthen city, dirt and rock formations creating mounds, ditches, high-rising walls and huge huts around natural platforms in the craggy-earthed environment, creating a systematic colony that could've only been there for the purpose of holding the monsters it was crawling with. The huts were misshapen and full of tunnels, and the brothers couldn't tell if the creatures had dug them out over some period of time, or if they'd always been there, leading places far from safety.

Mikey had seen it when he found the cave, but hadn't necessarily had time to stop and stare. And he'd seen the black, inky monsters that stalked around this dirt city, either stalking toward a hut just to disappear and never come out, or slinking around in the shadows, doing what he could only guess was hunting – but hunting what, in this haunted city situated in a barren wasteland, he wasn't sure. The thought sent a chill up his back.

Taking in a sharp inhale, Donnie tugged his hand and quickly moved forward. As much as they hated this place, they were going to have to find a good vantage point to see if it had anything they needed. Mikey looked up at the sky as they hurried; it seemed unusually black tonight, and a little colder. A little colder felt a lot colder soon after they'd left their cave, and the brothers huddled together at every stop.

Donnie pressed himself against one of the dirt walls and looked up at a hill about half a mile away, then around the corner of the entryway they stood next to at some distant monsters. He gripped Mikey's hand tightly and scurried across, shoving his little brother behind him before peering around the corner on the other side. One of the monsters jerked its head in their direction, and the two brothers froze, Donnie pulling Mikey tighter against his back in what Mikey could only assume was a preparation to start scaling the wall if the monster moved. However, their behavior continued as normal, and after Donnie took Mikey's hand again, the brothers kept going.

 _Walk. Walk. Walk._ Mikey gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep up with Donnie's pace without dragging behind. Watching Donnie's gate, however, gave him extra motivation. He knew they were both in excruciating pain – they just had to push on. As hard as it was, the fire in his side was easiest to bear when he was moving, when his adrenaline was running. And this time, he wasn't stopping again; not anymore, not while his brothers needed him.

With the large pits, boulders and uneven landscape of the hill, it was relatively easy to remain hidden as they started their way up, which was a huge relief. Mikey looked back out at the habitation to try to spot water in the meantime, both making slower progress uphill. Squinting, he tried to convince himself the entire place didn't look just as bare as he'd thought it was.

Once they'd finally reaching the top, the two remained low to the ground, despite the area being expansive and offering several rock formations as potential cover. They snuck to the best vantage point and looked out.

The earthen habitation was large, and only in its intricacy and the unreal darkness that permeated it, impressive. The rest of it looked like a nightmare in the desert, and Mikey almost wished they were back in the dead woods full of strange sounds that seemed thirsty for violence. Here, the weight of the darkness and the unknown was much heavier, and the malevolence in the atmosphere of this red-skied city alone made him tremble. Donnie looked at him analytically with concern, and Mikey returned the gaze, mouth pressed into a thin line.

Donnie gave Mikey's hand a squeeze, giving him a soft, complex look, before gazing out at the landscape again. "Have you seen any water?"

"No." Mikey shook his head, looking out too. "I've been keeping an eye out and haven't seen any anywhere. I think all we've got is in the canyon."

Donnie sighed, running things over in his mind. "Then, I guess we head back there. I was hoping that this place would have any kind of electricity-conductible minerals, but I haven't seen any good types - none that I know. It is possible that there could be some conductible minerals if we went further out in this environment, based on how volcanic it seems. But that isn't a sure thing; and besides, I don't want to go further away right now." He said, voice dropping in a foreboding disappointment that worried Mikey a little.

Mikey looked out at the city again, troubled. The red peeking through the dark sky above was slowly but surely being swallowed by black. If they were to search for materials that Donnie needed here, the darkness would cover them better, but it gave him a dreadfully uneasy feeling.

"I think it's better to go back, too." Mikey agreed, looking at his brother. A sudden sensation of nausea hit him and he wanted nothing more than to leave this place.

Donnie made a distant, thoughtful nod, before turning back to Mikey and gently tugging his hand. "Come on. Let's–"

His eyes going wide, suddenly Donnie was shoving him into the ground behind a thick cluster of dried shrubbery nearby with a hand over his mouth, and all Mikey's senses went ablaze with panic, his older brother looking similar as he pressed both of them as close against the ground as he could. His big brother was all-senses-alert and muscles tense in such an abrupt transition to combat-mode that it freaked Mikey out all by itself – something was very wrong. His panic battled with confusion as he realized he hadn't sensed anything, there shouldn't be anything nearby, why was Donnie –

A growl emitted extremely nearby.

Mikey froze. He didn't dare look over for a moment, because just as clearly as there _hadn't_ been anything there before, there suddenly _was –_

He looked up at Donnie wide-eyed, who spared him the briefest wildfire-like expression, before glancing at the monster, only a few paces away. They'd both been caught unawares. Mikey hadn't thought they'd been _that_ out of it. No – that was impossible. How had this one snuck through both of their senses?

After a moment of petrified observation, they realized it had not noticed them yet. With sudden urgency, Mikey silently rolled his older brother off of him and running low, dragged them both behind a large bolder formation beside them, watching the monster with panicky focus. Shoving Donnie against the rock, he held the two of them as tightly against it as he could, shielding his big brother.

Donnie was totally taken off guard by Mikey's sudden movement, and Mikey could practically feel the storm of anger and panic rolling off of him as soon as they hit the bolder. Donnie shot Mikey a dark, sharp look and forcefully wrapped his arms around his little brother, clearly intending to move them down and cover him, but with a jerk they both froze in terror as the monster leapt over their cover, continuing until it disappeared down the hill on the other side.

Donnie crushed Mikey against him in panic, and Mikey clenched his eyes shut and leaned his head on his brother's chest as they waited, listening in case of its re-emergence as light rain starter pattering down. Rain – _water._ Yet, as much as the idea of water struck Mikey with desperate, screaming hope, this rain stung a little – as smoggy and death-ridden as this place was, they probably couldn't even trust that. He dismissed it in a horrible, longing way that hurt; however, after an unusually long length of time and not hearing the monster come back, their tense muscles relaxed just marginally enough for them to lessen their tight grip.

Mikey glanced up at Donnie for a moment, before quickly and suddenly dashing ahead with as much silence and stealth as he could, trying to find out where the creature went.

"MI-!" Donnie whispered harshly, panicking as he ran after his little brother.

Approaching the hillside, Mikey looked out – just to see the thing had disappeared entirely. Huh? He looked down the hill and to both sides, confused. Just as it seemed to have come out of nowhere, it was gone again, and his senses, at least, were no longer detecting it. How –

Donnie was suddenly grabbing him around his middle and forcing him back, surprising him at the sudden action. Flinging him around in the other direction, Donnie carefully, but forcefully, shoved Mikey to the ground, pinning him there so he was unable to move. Mikey's shock turned into panic, escalating by few hundred miles a minute – Donnie was PISSED.

"You wanna tell me what you're trying to prove?!" His big brother's eyes were white with anger and his whisper and scowling expression so fierce, Mikey was tempted to pull into his shell. "What are you doing, darting around and shoving in front of me?! You better have a damn special reason, because I can assure you, it's _not_ gonna be a good one!"

Momentarily tucking his head to the side and squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden anger and unexpectedly acidic words, Mikey turned to face Donnie again in frustration, his own growing. He wanted to shove Donnie off of him, but his bigger brother's size made it difficult, and his upper body strength was too weakened at the moment. "Get _off_ me, Donnie! I'm just trying to watch your back, like you're watching mine! Can't I protect my brother, too?"

Donnie's angry expression darkened. He wasn't used to _angry_ Donnie, and it frightened him a little, but he held his ground – his brother was gonna have to lay off. He was gonna hurt himself _way_ worse than anyone else. " _No,_ you're trying to wedge yourself between me and danger, which in case you weren't aware, is a _bad move._ What has gotten _into_ you?! If you thought I was just gonna stand around and watch you throw yourself out in front of me if we got attacked, you're **sorely** mistaken!"

"I'm trying to keep you from getting HURT!" Mikey combatted. "I mean, worse than you already are?! You're the one that keeps trying to shove in front of me, and I _don't_ –" Mikey gave a weak attempt to shove his brother off of him, "–wanna watch you get _eaten!_ "

Donnie's scowl took on a particularly scary edge, but with a sudden burst of effort, he finally managed to wrestle the older brother off of him with a knee. Trying to struggle to his feet, Mikey quickly realized it didn't matter – and remembered a little too late, Donnie's ninja skills were not inhibited in the same way his were – as Donnie executed a lightning-fast counter move in order to take him captive in his arms this time, which he couldn't escape.

"That's it," Donnie growled, trying to get at Mikey's waist belt as he struggled. "I'm restraining you until we're out of enemy territory. If you're not gonna cooperate and put yourself in danger, I have no choice!"

" _No!_ " Realizing the danger, Mikey held a puff of air and painfully launched himself away from his captor with his legs, rolling before standing on his knees to face Donnie. "I'm not letting you haul me around and I'm _not_ letting you break your foot off! You can fight me all you want to, Donnie, but _I'm_ getting Raph back!"

Mikey immediately flinched back inside at the words that came out of his mouth, and Donnie's face filled with a hurt sadness an instant later that killed him. He hadn't meant that. Not like that. Where did that come from? What was he _saying?_ The rain was quickly worsening, and he struggled for the words to say, but the shattered look in Donnie's eyes was shredding apart every desperate apology that came to mind. Donnie flinched, rubbing at the backs of his arms in pain, and the move gave them both pause for a moment.

"Donnie, I –"

The nauseous feeling came back to him in a wave that almost made him lurch, cutting off his words and making him put hands to his stomach as Donnie gave him a piercing look –

In a _flash,_ a monster appeared directly behind Donnie out of thin air, and Mikey's heart stopped beating.

" _DONNIE, LOOK OUT!_ "

All three moved at once – the monster struck out at Donnie, Donnie whirled around to find the attacker he hadn't sensed, and Mikey lunged for Donnie.

He reached his brother just before the monster did, tackling him out of the way, and the monster struck him with a force that felt like ramming into a brick wall.

Mikey was quickly and easily launched over the side of the hilltop, suddenly tumbling down the steep, sandy incline.

He vaguely registered Donnie cry out his name with a voice that made him feel agony inside, but the fire that erupted from his side from the blow caused his vision to black out, and each jarring impact as he toppled down the hill was the only thing to assure him he was still conscious. The sound of rain roared around him on the trip down – when did it start raining so hard?

Finally, graciously, he slid across one of the many boulder-filled pits in the hill, and was saved from going over the edge when his shell smacked into one of them.

Hearing and most of his other senses went out with that impact, and he was just regaining a fuzzy picture in his eyes and distinguishing muffled sounds through his roaring ears as he made out Donnie again, still at the top of the hill, backing away in a crouched position from the monster bearing down on him.

Mikey's senses screamed at him to move. The pit in the hill had become a large, fast-moving puddle of water from the pouring rain. He pushed himself onto his elbows, threw up a bit of blood and whatever else he had, blearily looked back up at Donnie as he started trying to drag himself in that direction. It was raining so hard – hard enough that the water pouring down the hill started crashing against him, almost washing him backwards. What was happening? He had to get to Donnie. Faster! _Go!_ He clenched his teeth harder, desperately fighting the current as he watched the two, both of which were struggling to keep their ground themselves. Thunder suddenly crashed through the air with a boom that rattled his bones, and Mikey closed his eyes in panic, calling out for Donnie. With a sudden torrent, Mikey was forced back the little distance he'd made, colliding with the boulder again in an impact that sent him reeling into darkness again, and the last thing he saw was both monster and his brother being washed over the hill in the flood-like downpour.

.

.

.

When he woke up again, it was like in a dream.

He seemed to be floating in a dark room of some kind, a blue glow dancing on the walls. He was so _cold,_ everything hurt, his whole body stung and burned and ached... _oh God._ He spent the next several moments fighting nausea, and in the end lost the battle, but there was nothing left in his stomach to reject. He'd dry-heaved before, not often but he had; yet, none of those experiences ever had, nor he was sure, ever would, stand up to this one. Fire ripped through his mid-section and travelled his whole body as his stomach tried to expel what it didn't have, and while the two sensations were gracefully strong enough to fight each other and take the worst edge off of each in the process, it also elongated the experience, and he floated there for another while longer, writhing in agony and simply praying for it to end.

After what seemed like an eternity, the nausea died again to curl back up in a ball in the pit of his stomach, where it would stay until next time. The icy-cold of the water he floated in seemed to help with that – which he had, finally, gathered enough awareness to realize it was. Through sheer exhaustion, he looked about what appeared to be an underground cavern. How he got here or how far underground he was, he had no idea – but he was grateful he had gotten here alive.

Donnie.

How long had he been unconscious?

" _I've got to get out of here."_

Immediately, Mikey dove down underwater and started swimming. His best bet was to explore the small cavern and try to find a way out, but it was incredibly dark and hard to see, except for what looked like sparse patches of glowing algae at the bottom.

Fumbling blindly in the dark was an equally frustrating, unnerving and disgusting task, but he was massively relieved when he found the small, black tunnel that led to this room. When or how he got all the way through there to here, he wasn't confident he'd ever know.

Testing its size, he found he'd fit fine to swim through. Now the only problem was doing it. Besides being super creepy and completely black, he had no idea how long it was or where it lead.

Surfacing again for a few moments, he got some air and performed some gentle breathing exercises to maximize the amount of time his turtle-lungs could hold his breath. Even with the added bonus of his and his brothers' natural affinity to water, his limit with activity was fifteen minutes.

He dove down and started through the tunnel as quickly as he could go.

.

.

To his horrible realization, he quickly found out he wouldn't even make it that long.

His side injury was just too severe. Even in the weightlessness of water, swimming just took too much effort, and the burning pain radiating from his torso was making it more difficult to keep the air that he needed. This tunnel was fairly long, after all, but he'd begun swimming up toward what he hoped would be the surface, both a relief and an added source of stress to his injury.

His stupid freaking side. Why couldn't he have had a better landing and just gotten something nice like a sprained knee, like Raph and Donnie?

He instantly grimaced, taking that back. His brothers' conditions were anything but 'nice'. He was sure Raph was just as worse for wear as his little brothers. His heart ached horribly thinking of the two of them, and tried to focus.

Finally, just as he began to panic that he wasn't progressing quickly enough, light began filtering into the dark blackness of the little tunnel. It was impossible to tell exactly how far the surface was or what was beyond it, but he thought he could make it out. But it was definitely still far. He had to keep going – his side was burning so badly. He groaned underwater in pain and lack of air, noticing a large rock jutting into the tunnel and slipping around it before he collided, pushing off of it to give himself a boost.

The rock collapsed from its hold in the tunnel, dislodging another one, which smacked against Mikey's side.

He couldn't help crying out. His vision blacked out for a moment and he fought, with every fiber of his being, to force down his body's spasmic attempts to start dry-heaving again. For a few minutes, the struggle against his own pain in a desperate attempt to keep from choking down water was all he knew. When his vision finally began to clear, it was only in spots. It felt like all the oxygen he'd had left was already far beyond consumed, and he panicked, struggling with everything he was worth to reach the surface.

When he did, he wasn't entirely sure how he'd done it. He didn't remember being close enough to the surface yet or even breaking it, but when he opened his eyes, he was lying there, the rest of his body slowly rising up to float at the surface. He flailed, panicking and coughing up water and trying to breathe and stay afloat, all at once.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed land, and struggled to it much like he'd struggled to the surface of the water. Once there, he did finally throw up for real, his stomach upending buckets of water.

As he collapsed at the bank of _whatever_ kind of pond he'd ended up at, too sick, in too much pain and too _everything_ else to move, his last thought before passing out again was how ironic it was that at it had felt nice when the water initially got into his parched system.

.

.

Waking up again was a startled sensation, like he'd been falling.

He darted his eyes about his surroundings, terror taking hold and steadily building up from his chest.

His nervous wreck of a brain recalled everything in jarring snapshots, like it was forcefully, too forcefully, pulling his memories back from quicksand. Raph. Donnie. The monster. It'd started raining. He washed away into that underground place. Almost drowning. _Raph. DONNIE._

He was really all alone.

He wasn't sure where he'd ended up, but it was somewhere in that earthen city of monsters, and he was _vulnerable_. He'd been passed out in the open, _Jesus_ – suddenly shaking all over, Mikey slunk back into the pond he'd nearly died in, not quite having the stomach to fully submerge himself again, but only peeking out with his face.

Horrible pain jarred his whole body at the slightest movement, and he did his best to maneuver without setting himself off on a pain seizure.

The pond – which had definitely, he knew without a doubt, _not_ been here before, when he and Donnie were looking – seemed to be tucked away behind some huge dirt domes and was wedged against tall earthen cliffs, so at least he'd been relatively hidden.

It had started raining so hard, so quickly. Like a flood coming straight from the sky. It had washed all of them straight off the hill. It would've certainly drowned him, or gotten him crushed, if he hadn't miraculously been swept away somewhere that hadn't happened.

The panic in his chest finally migrated to his stomach. _Donnie...Onii-san...please be alright._

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A/N: Yoyoyoyoyoyoyoooooooooo

Y'all it's almost 6am and my sleep schedule is wack on a smack daddy crackalack and I am DYING right now, but I REALLY wanted to post this chapter because I've been wanting to work more on this story soo badly and I really want to share it with you all. The angst. The drama. What will happen next episode?!

All the turtle bros could really use a hug right now :(


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: Quick note - I listened to some ambient music to help set the mood for myself while I wrote some scenes, and found a really cool video that reminded me of cave noises, which is exactly what I was looking for. When Mikey goes into the cave - you'll know the one - try starting this track for the full spoopy experience (I think it's really cool.) As always, headphones are best!_

 _(Look up Dark Gothic Music of Abandoned Castles and Forgotten Temples. The uploader is Cryo Chamber)_

* * *

Mikey skittered about in the shadows and between the closest little burrows of the landscape he could reach, searching desperately for his brother and a place he could hide, as the early morning darkness contributed to the gloom of their fifth day on the planet.

It was difficult to move, but he had to. He refused to stop anywhere while both of his brothers were missing. He couldn't imagine anything else. He could hardly think at all – terror for his brothers and his surroundings overrode most everything else. But it was getting so difficult. The third day had been particularly bad, after which his body had begun adapting to his hunger, but it was palpably beginning to affect his strength, at this point. His body was just too battered. He would almost be thankful for the flood of rain that poured down last night, if it hadn't separated him from his remaining brother, nearly killed them, choked him of his need for water by drowning him in it, and generally stung to begin with.

Standing and moving had become a matter of balance. Using his middle for any kind of strength or leverage was impossible now, and moving at all was still a struggle that brought occasional waves of agony he fought desperately with. But as long as he was very careful, he could still move. He gritted his teeth and bore through it, searching frantically and endlessly for the brothers he'd lost.

At the same time, he had no choice but to keep moving; the monsters still prowled the city, even after the downpour that seemed capable of killing even their kind. Mikey got a dark, crawling sensation it hadn't been. They moved about with just as much violent hunger as before, searching about aimlessly and vaguely for...Mikey still didn't know what. They seemed quite capable of hunting the three brothers down, once they'd caught wind they were there. Several of them hadn't even needed to move – they just appeared and struck out once they were aware of their presence. Like he'd told Donnie, it was almost like they were distracted by something else most of the time. He didn't understand...he shuddered. Their long, mangled bodies dripping with the black-tar-whatever-it-was, their joints cracking in and out at impossible angles as they moved, the way their elongated, featureless, sharp-jawed heads shuddered and seized – he was seeing them in his nightmares now, every time he slipped into sleep or unconsciousness, and hearing their awful wailing voices that sometimes sounded eerily like screaming humans to him instead. And on top of everything, through some dark mechanism of forces beyond him, they could teleport. The longer he slipped about this place, the more often he witnessed them do that, sometimes without appearing anywhere else he could tell or coming back, and it terrified him every time, wondering where they'd gone; if they were even still here, anywhere, at all. He would drop to the ground when one near him disappeared, shivering and digging his fingers into the dry earth and crying, waiting to make sure it didn't appear again behind him, and that no others came for him. He felt so awful and nauseous and was so defenseless around these things.

 _"Donnie...Raph...Leo...I want you guys...help me, I'm scared...I need you..."_ He choked back a sob as he scurried forward, moving in the shadows from behind one earth platform to another. He missed them, wanted them so badly it hurt just as much as his body did.

That other creature, with scales and beady eyes that seemed to reach in and claw at his soul, and poured fire over him and Donnie...that one teleported the same way. There was no telling where that one was, now.

He was so scared. He wanted his brothers, so much.

He missed having Donnie with him here, being able to hold his hand like a safety anchor and a place he could hide.

 _"You can fight me all you want to, Donnie, but_ I'm _getting Raph back!"_

He scrunched his face against the wave of sorrow, remembering the way Donnie looked at him, the way they both paused. _"I'm sorry, Donnie. Please be ok. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to yell at you like that. Please don't think..."_ His breath hitched in a broken whimper, clawing the dirt he crouched on. _"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please be ok. I don't know what I'll ever do if...I'm so sorry, please, please..."_

An explosion of sound erupted behind him and he couldn't help but jump. Terror overrode him as he scrambled from the wall he hid behind to a dense thicket of dead shrubbery, hiding his head under his hands for a moment of paralyzed fear before looking up as the violent noise continued. Three monsters were attacking each other – he'd seen them a moment before, they hadn't been interacting, nothing should have happened, what happened? – but the three were lunging at each other in raging violence now, wailing at the top of their lungs and spilling black ink. He backed an inch deeper into the shrubbery that hid him, curling into a tighter ball, and despite the dead thicket being plenty large and dense to hide him completely, he felt like he might as well have been standing in the open. The three attacking monsters attracted more, and the sickening sounds of violence became louder. Jaws started gnashing over meat and Mikey hid his face in his hands, shaking and crying uncontrollably, before tucking as far into his shell as he could.

.

He hid in the shrubbery for what felt like hours. Miraculously, thankfully, the creatures never appeared to notice him through his cover. However, their fighting drew more of the monsters around – more than he thought possible. Tons of them had crawled out of the tunnels in the landscape, and the sheer number of the convulsing, long-jawed creatures made Mikey too afraid to even look at them anymore, quivering in the thicket. The only reason he thought he could bear this nightmare was because he kept fading in and out of consciousness, out of exhaustion from moving, the stress and his recent weakness and lack of energy. It felt like his nerves were frying, keeping a paranoid, terrified eye on his surroundings when he was awake, just to fall off into an anxiety-ridden half-consciousness and jolt awake again in panic when he realized he'd dozed off. Glancing up at a small group of monsters as they stalked by, he inched back further into the shrubbery and dropped his face onto his curled-up fists on the ground, wishing he could run to his brothers and hide in their arms. He'd never come out again.

After some time, Mikey realized the monsters had become less concentrated around him, still active in large numbers nearby but far away enough he could try to move again. Quickly, before he lost his chance, he tried to strategize where to go. He'd already tried to cover the locations he thought Donnie could've been – around the tall hill they'd been before and surrounding areas his brother could've moved; but, he hadn't found the first sign of Donnie, and now had no idea where his brother might've gone. For all he knew, he'd been swept off to some obscure place like Mikey had, and then he _really_ might not be able to find him. Mikey wanted to cry. Where did he even start–

Someone's voice cried out far away, ringing through the air before being swallowed again by the normal guttural moans of monsters, and every nerve in Mikey's body stood on end. That was Donnie's voice. _Donnie was alive._

He hadn't sounded like he was in pain – just yelling, maybe frustrated. It sounded like he could've been a mile or two away, but he could tell which direction it came from. Several monsters in Mikey's vicinity turned towards the noise, before creeping that way.

He could find out what Donnie was yelling for later. Right now, he just needed to get to his brother, he thought as he slipped in that direction through the shadows. He needed his brother.

Because of his condition and surroundings, it took Mikey about thirty minutes before he came near where he thought the sound had originated. There was an unusually large mound-like formation here, almost intricate in the red-earthed platform design of this desert region, and under any other circumstances the huge, detailed structure would've been an awe-inspiring spectacle – but the place made Mikey's nauseous, crawling feeling worse than ever, and all his senses blared with warning and told him to get away from there. He looked wildly and frantically around for his brother, wishing with all that he had that he could call out for him, or just yell like Donnie had and hopefully alert his brother to his position. Heck, he would've appreciated being able to yell just for yelling's sake. _"Please,"_ Mikey pleaded in his thoughts, using every bit of his quickly-diminishing strength to search the place, sneaking and hiding anywhere he could, moving about faster and faster as horrible, sick panic set in that Donnie might already be gone. _"Please,"_ He begged, tears beginning to stream down his face. _"Don't tell me you've left already. Please don't be hurt. Please, Donnie, don't leave me. Please! I need to find you! I need you! Onii-san!"_

However, despite his pleading, crying and desperate searching, the only hint of Donnie he found was a short track of turtle-footprints, just ever so slightly bigger than Mikey's own, and already quickly disappearing as wind blew loose earth over the hard sand. Mikey couldn't follow the direction the tracks were headed in, because they pointed toward where he'd already been. Going back again would be pointless.

Mikey fell to the ground over those tracks, which disappeared even as he leaned over them, sobbing. Donnie was gone already. Mikey missed him. He left him...he didn't even know if he was still alive.

"Onii-san..." Mikey cried, fists against his chest and bent over in anguish. His middle quickly gave out, and he crumpled on his better side. "Don't leave me...I'm scared. I need you...Onii-san..."

.

Unable to move anymore, Mikey had to find cover shortly afterwards and rest for a few more hours, even though "rest" for him only meant leaning over a rock formation in a small enclosure to rest his exhausted injuries, staring out into his surroundings like expecting to be assaulted at any time. Despite the horrible feeling he got in this place and the immense danger he sensed he was in being around it, he continued to search for his missing big brother well into nightfall, occasionally being forced back into hiding when monsters appeared or trekked by, where he'd tremble and tears would fall against his will, out of terror, praying he wasn't found. When he was too exhausted to move again, he found a tiny, one-person crevice at the base of a cliffside behind some thick, dead shrubbery, and he huddled inside trembling and hugging himself, leaning his head on the ground as he watched the red-black sky through the thicket outside, listening in fear for nearby monsters all night.

He placed one hand on the ground in front of his head, lightly digging his fingers into the dirt, and stared at it forlornly.

 _"Onii...I miss you Donnie..."_ He thought. He worked a finger aimlessly into the dirt, and before he knew it, tears were slipping out again.

 _"Raphie...Please, please be ok...I'm so scared. I-I miss you...I need you...we can't get through here without you, Raph...we won't make it at all, w-without you, Raph. Please be ok..."_

He dug deeper into the earth, getting a handful of dirt.

 _"Leo-nii..."_ His whole soul clenched and roiled in despair. _"I love you...I miss you...I miss you, Onii. I'm scared...we need you. Please, hurry and come get us...I miss you, I love you..."_

He would give anything to be in his brothers' arms right now, being rocked while Leo sang them a lullaby. Leo loved singing to them, as rarely as he did it, being the bashful person their brother was. They loved when Leo sang to them...Mikey loved his big brother's voice. It was soothing and warm, and hummed deep with affection. Sometimes it was the only thing that could get him asleep...

Hissing lightly through his teeth, Mikey released his grip on the dirt and rolled slightly in pain. He put his hand to his forehead, feeling dizzy and weak. His forehead was warm.

A fever...

Even if the realization made something cold drop in his stomach and frustrated him even further somewhere in the back of his mind, it made sense he'd be getting one, at this point. Still, he felt too exhausted and awful to really put energy into letting it upset him too much. He was only in the beginning fazes of the fever, and could last a while longer; and maybe the fever wouldn't be too bad, and would break on its own before too long. He could still look for Donnie.

He laid awake the rest of the night, listening for monsters and trembling and crying for his big brothers, shivering in the cold, desperate to curl up in their arms.

.

.

Mikey was on the move again early in the morning of day six, long before sunlight – or whatever dim source illuminated this dark planet – had a chance to show.

He almost had to – he wanted to be out of that lonely crevice in the cliffside, hurting and miserable with nothing to distract his racing mind, as soon as possible.

His midsection felt no better from yesterday, a clear sign that things were not doing good; but, it didn't hurt any worse, and resting had helped his body adapt to the energy he was expending by searching while having had no food for so long. He didn't feel the hunger pangs anymore – at least not while his activity was consistent – and Mikey counted it as an advantage.

He still felt the dizziness and weakness of the developing fever, which would make his need for water worse again soon; and as many water puddles around as there were now, the water wasn't safe and would need to be boiled, which he couldn't do.

He wasn't letting that distract him, however – he couldn't afford to.

As he continued searching into the morning, he made a terrible discovery – the monsters were still stalking this place in dense numbers, and if anything, there were _more_ than yesterday. It was much harder to move around, and eventually, Mikey decided he was going to have to move away from here or else get caught; Donnie couldn't be around here where all these monsters were, either, after all. His brother was smart – he wouldn't put himself in danger. He'd be looking for Mikey...

Unless he'd been taken into the huge earth temple, which still set all of Mikey's senses off...

Maybe that's why he'd yelled.

Mikey shook his head, rubbing his hands into his face. No no no...Donnie couldn't be in there. He couldn't imagine that. That couldn't be possible...

But if he was, he might be in a lot of trouble...waiting for Mikey...

Mikey turned toward the structure, several yards away, with wide, fearful eyes, and started trembling.

If he didn't check, Donnie might...

He closed his eyes; took several deep, shaky breaths, and started heading that way.

.

On entering the lowest cave leading inside the earth temple, Mikey was immediately swallowed in darkness.

The place was even colder inside, and as soon as he'd started down the tunnel, Mikey thought he could hear new, strange sounds somewhere in the distance; not that he had any clue where they came from either, but chills ran through him with every echo and deep, ominous rumble. As he walked further away from the light outside, the cave became more and more black, and he had to feel his way further inside. The very premise of being trapped in this place, with who knew what else, in total blackness, terrified him so much that he almost started trembling too hard to continue. But, with his brother alone on his mind, he kept going, both hands against the wall.

Finally, the tunnel opened up into what seemed to be a room, though it was too dark to tell. Only the dim light at the tunnel's exit was visible, and with knees shaking almost too much to stand, Mikey slowly inches forward away from the wall, trying to feel his way. He wanted to call out for his brother, even make the smallest sound in case he was in here, but not knowing what _else_ might be here instead, his voice froze in his throat against his will.

After several moments, his eyes managed to adjust enough to pick up what sparse little light was in the room, coming from the exit far away. However, he felt like he could make out the barest hint of light ahead, possibly in adjacent chambers, so he moved toward the nearest one.

The ground was cold and damp on his feet. As soon as Mikey met another wall, he grasped onto it with both shaking hands, and continued down another tunnel leading him to the dim light. " _Donnie?_ " He finally managed to whisper, hardly loud enough to hear, and tried one more time, a little louder, just in case. "Donnie?"

After listening for a moment, the only sound that met him was the continuous, reverberating moans of the caves, with no hint of any brothers. The shifting, groaning sounds were really starting to make him shake too hard to walk now, and he crouched slightly as he came to the end of the tunnel, finding only another chamber, hardly lit by a similar glowing algae he'd found in the flooded cavern yesterday. _"Maybe coming in here was the wrong idea."_ He finally thought, quickly turning around to go back. _"Donnie can't be in here–"_

Nausea hit him like a punch to the gut, and he whipped around again, wide-eyed and falling to his knees.

In an explosion of fire, a monster appeared.

No.

 _The_ monster.

Sound was suddenly a deafening thunder of flames echoing off the cavern, and a minute after the monster appeared, it roared.

" _GOTTA GET OUT! RUN! RUN, DAMNIT!"_ Mikey's thoughts screamed, desperately looking down the tunnel where he wanted to go, but his muscles were suddenly puddles. He couldn't budge an inch.

In slow, agonizing movement, the monster turned its head to face Mikey directly, its beady red eyes boring into him, and Mikey screamed.

The thing inched toward Mikey slowly, feet not touching the ground, but hovering over it; its head convulsing, twisting and snapping as it shifted through languages, and Mikey could only fall backwards and inch away, sobbing.

 **"בוא ותמותԵկեք եւ կործանվիրتعال والهلكC̥̼̜͇̣̹̠O̼̬̺̙M̵̬̻̝̯̘Ḛ͍̻ ͏̘̯̺͓͈A̷͔͓͍͈̙͚̩N̞̼̥̳̺̤͘D ̞P̹ͅE̛̟͖̰Ṛ̠̣͔̺̭̝̕I̟͔S͍̹̘̳Ḫ̼"**

Screaming in terror, Mikey finally got his feet underneath him again, and bolted for the tunnel that led to the exit. Except, when he got there–

It had changed. _The cavern had changed!_

"NO NO NO _NO!_ " Mikey cried, feeling desperately and wildly for the tunnel. He was sure he remembered where it was. He hadn't gone far. Yet, where it had been, there was only cave wall now.

Fire exploded through the tunnel the monster chased him through, filling the room, and Mikey ran for the next nearest tunnel, screaming and crying.

 **"C̖̗̜̥̮̟Ó̤M̶̖̱E̛ ̞̲͈̹̩A̶̻̱̮̞̟N̩̺̞̘̟̤D̞̝̲͖͚̹̕ ̟͎̦͙̼̮̹P̘̼̙̣E̖̜̹̦͘R̯͇̫̕I҉̟S̝H̩̰̫̱͓̬̕ ̴̭C͔̯̞̖̞͙͎͡O̟̘̜̮̠͠M̧̭͎̫͕̟E͘ A͕̜N͍̝̬̙̠͝Ḍ͚̻̭̲ ̧̫͎̜̺̲̳P̸̦͖̪͚ÉR̜I҉̻̩͈͇S̛͎H̼̳̦̱ ̝̗͉͚̫̻̘́C̥̺̪̝ͅǪ̪M̟E̠͍͕̟̼ͅ ̰̙̫A͓̘̲Ǹ͙͈̙̥D̶̮̻̳ ̲͓̱̻̻̜̺P̰̬͙̲͚E͇̠̙̲RI̴̖̮͖͈̹S̺̪̬̺͜H̘̫"**

" _ONII! DONNIE! RAPH! LEO! HELP! HELP ME!_ " Mikey cried, disregarding the tunnel walls as he bolted through, cutting and scratching his arms and legs. He entered the next room, which held two additional tunnels, the closest only big enough for him to fit through, but neither with the dim light on the other end. The monster was coming in fast, and he ran as close to the next tunnel as he could before the monster burst in, and Mikey fell on his backside and scooted away, hands over his face and petrified.

 **"C̤̹ͅOM͈E̫̣̟̲͙̯ ̟A̳̼̠̺̰̺͉͟Ṉ̟̬ͅD͡ T̞̦̤͇̫̭̬H̭͉͖͍ͅE̻̘̙͇̯Ṉ̯ T̫̖̤̙̝̰̻́H̱̣̖͜E̘̥̟Y҉͙͔̹̘̞̳ ̝͉͉̙̦͠W̢̝̞̝̜̻̖͍I̴͈̙͉̠̪͖L͔̗̬̪L ͠F̡͔Ò̮̫̫̯͔L̶L͓O̷̪̗̦͍̜͓W҉̱̖̳̝̪̪ "** Its horrible, mangled voice roared, taking a deep breath as veins like lava lit up in its black chest. Mikey trembled

and hid his head in his arms where he sat cowering, crying.

 _"I'm sorry...Leo...Raphie...Donnie...I love all of you...onii..."_ He thought, too afraid to look. _"Leo...Raphie...Donnie...Raphie...Donnie..."_

 _They will follow..._

Wait...

Mikey's eyes snapped open.

"Donnie...Raphie..." He mumbled. "They will follow...both... _they're both still alive!_ "

Donnie and Raph were still alive! _Raph_ was still alive! He couldn't give up now. _He had to find them!_

Unfortunately, he was out of time. He jumped up and darted down the small tunnel he sat in front of as fast as he could go, just as the monster opened his mouth, and fire poured out in an endless river, until it consumed everything.

" _AAAaaah!_ " Mikey screamed in pain as it consumed him, while the ground simultaneously seemed to open up underneath him, because he was falling the next minute – stumbling down a steep incline until finally he crashed into the floor of the room below.

.

His vision returned in a distorted blur as he woke up from what seemed to have been a temporary black-out. He immediately jumped, stiffening on the ground and staring up at the tunnel he'd just fallen through, dimly illuminated by more of the glowing algae; yet, as long as he stared, nothing came through and nothing happened. He was alone again.

He let out a shaky, sob-choked sigh, squeezing his eyes shut. His whole body ached, and he was sure he was covered in burns like Donnie had been before, only he was surely much worse. Tears started to slip from his eyes again. What was he gonna do? He wanted his brothers. Oh, he just wanted his brothers to come get him, and never have to open his eyes to see this retched planet ever again. How was he gonna get out now? He didn't even bother to see if this room had more tunnels. He could barely move in the first place, and now...he shouldn't have come in here. He shouldn't–

He heard a scratching noise, and his eyes shot open.

There was something on the ground, a small creature in front of him, watching him.

Mikey stared at it, trying to determine the threat, and comprehend it. It looked like a little gremlin, about as tall as his leg to his knee. But...it had eyes circling all the way around its head, the ones directly facing Mikey being closed and all others open, with a jaw full of sharp teeth tightly closed.

He couldn't make out what it was, what it meant – but he continued staring at it, scared. _What now?_ It wasn't very big. Maybe if he didn't make any sudden moves, it would leave him alone...he blinked in confusion–

In an instant, it was closer, closer than it could have gotten in the time Mikey blinked, and Mikey flinched back in terror. It was frozen in a position like it had been sprinting on all fours, head tilted, and that mouth full of sharp teeth was wide open now, jaw almost as long as its body. The eyes that were facing him and had been closed before were open now, and looked bloodshot, but after just a second they closed again.

Mikey froze like a statue, whole body trembling and unable to move, as he stared at it with wide eyes. _No no no. What? What was this?_ He tried to understand. What was happening? He'd never seen this before. How did it get so close? Why wasn't it moving now? What was it gonna do? Mikey continued staring at it, starting to cry again. _"No. No, this can't be real. I can't do this. No, God please no!"_ He cried out in agony in his head, disbelieving. He didn't want to die here. He didn't want to never see his brothers again. _He wanted his brothers–_

All of a sudden, like an explosion, something – _someone –_ came busting into the tunnel and shot in between Mikey and the creature, wielding something like a staff.

 _"D..."_ Mikey's thoughts stuttered.

Rearing their weapon backwards, they aimed to make a solid shot at the little monster, crying out in pure rage–

" _HRRRAAAAAAA!_ "

The staff impacted the creature with a _crack,_ sending it flying through the room until, with a sick _smack,_ it hit the opposite wall, becoming impaled on a long protrusion. Not done with it yet, the person leapt across the room with all the speed of a train, smashing the staff so hard against the creature that it shattered in half in a million splinters, and in a spray of carnage, the thing was blown apart.

 _"Do..."_

Before he could even move, the person shot back over to Mikey and was protectively pulling him into strong arms, holding him tight against himself as he ran for an exit; and suddenly, somehow – somehow Mikey didn't think he could possibly understand – the tunnel the person raced through opened up into outside light and fresh air, and just like that, they were out.

Mikey looked up at his rescuer, running like mad away from the place. As much danger as they were still in, as anxious as the one holding him close was, Mikey leaned against the plastron and snuggled his muzzle into it, coming apart with relief and broken crying. " _Donnie._ " He whimpered.

Donnie spared him the quickest glance down, the action having such an emotional affect that he almost stumbled. But Donnie squeezed him closer and kept running quickly with a face set with determination, and Mikey didn't miss the little trail of tears he left behind.

.

Donnie brought them to a cave on the far side of the earthen city from which they'd entered, and quickly squirreled around dead thickets into a small tunnel that made a short decline before opening up into a small, cozy space.

By now, tears were leaking from Donnie's eyes more quickly as he gently laid Mikey down, lying at an incline. One hand went to his cheek while the other shakily ran across the new damage on his body in a panic, hardly letting him go, but Mikey reached up to his big brother, trying wrap his arms around his neck even though he couldn't raise them that far anymore, his middle aching terribly.

" _Donnie, onii-san..._ " He whined, his voice in complete pieces with sobs. He didn't want Donnie to let go. He didn't care about his injuries, he just needed his big brother, needed to curl up and hide against him and cry. Donnie was back around him before he'd hardly gotten the words out, squeezing Mikey as close to himself as he possibly could as he collapsed over his baby brother, sobbing.

" _Mikey..._ Mikey, ototo, I'm here, I'm right here. I've got you..." Donnie cried, cradling Mikey's head into the crook of his neck as he buried his muzzle in Mikey's shoulder, wracked with emotion.

"Donnie, _onii..._ " Mikey buried his face against Donnie, hiccupping with tears. He'd never been so happy to bury into one of his brother's arms in his life, so relieved to see his big brother or so scared as he shivered in Donnie's arms, burrowing as close as Donnie held him tight. " _Nii,_ I was scared, I was so scared..."

"I know, I know..." Donnie kissed Mikey's stinging face as the younger broke down again, crying himself as he pressed his forehead and muzzle against his little brother's, wiping Mikey's tears away with his thumbs and nuzzling one cheek with his fingers. "It's all ok. Everything's ok. I won't let them get you...oh, my baby brother..." Donnie kissed the corner of Mikey's eye before dropping his head to the side, holding the younger's face against his and unable to control the tears. "M-Mikey...I...I looked so hard for you. After the rain, I looked everywhere, I turned up every stone, but you...I couldn't...I couldn't find you, anywhere. I thought...I thought..." Donnie broke off into sobs there, nuzzling Mikey's cheek with his and crying uncontrollably, holding him tight.

"Donnie, I'm right here, it's ok." Mikey cried, nuzzling against Donnie's face as the older pressed kisses into his again. "I was looking for you, too, I looked so hard, I...how did you find me? W–" He stuttered, choked on his tears. "What happened?"

"I was a long ways off, l-looking for you," Donnie said. "I suddenly heard you scream, and ran. You kept screaming, and I panicked – I knew you were in horrible danger. I found a wooden branch and ran into the first tunnel I saw. But I couldn't hear you anymore, I – I thought I was too late..."

"No," Mikey shook his head, nuzzling his face into Donnie's. "No, not at all." Sniffling, he took a moment to rest that way, his big brother snuggling his cheek with his own and trying to soothe him. Suddenly noticing the backs of Donnie's arms, he realized they still weren't fully healed yet from his own burns.

 _"...But_ I'm _getting Raph back..."_

 _Donnie flinched, rubbing his arms..._

"Onii," Mikey whimpered, getting Donnie's attention so he could look his big brother in the eyes, even though his own welled up with more tears. "Donnie, I'm so sorry for what I said. I didn't mean it...I don't know what I was..."

" _No no,_ " Donnie shook his head before he could continue, pressing his muzzle and forehead against his little brother's again with a broken expression as Mikey hiccupped with tears. "I know, ototo. Don't apologize...I'm sorry for yelling at you, and getting angry at you...Mikey, I-I was just so worried, and scared, I..."

Mikey smiled, stopping his big brother with snuggles this time. Donnie looked at him one last time before pulling him close, both snuggled up to the other and crying tears of relief. Before he knew it, Mikey finally drifted off...

* * *

When he awoke again, he immediately noticed the warmth and the solid presence against him. He snuggled in closer, soaking up all the warmth he could, and it was a struggle not to pretend everything was ok, and drift off again.

But everything wasn't ok. Not until they found Raph, not until they were reunited with their family on the Ulixes. Mikey blearily opened his eyes, rubbing a fist over them. His forehead felt so hot, and he felt so much weaker from before.

 _"This is progressing too fast...we need to find Raph...before..."_ Mikey groaned internally.

Donnie reacted to his movement, sighing and rubbing his hands over his own face. It appeared Donnie hadn't moved much after Mikey dozed off, and went to sleep, too. Donnie glanced at him, exchanging grins before bumping his muzzle to Mikey's.

Before Mikey could say anything, he suddenly noticed how much better he felt than before, and looking down, discovered all his burns were gone. Not only that, but Donnie's were, too, finally – despite leaving what looked like scrape-like wounds where the last ones had been. Mikey seemed fine, though, and marveled at it. He suddenly felt like he understood that monster's fire – for whatever reason, the burns were tied to whether or not someone was there to tend to them; and Mikey had a good idea that the reason for that had a lot to do with the other person, and the bond between the two.

This place and the creatures in it kept threatening suffering beyond their understanding, and they were in very real danger of being dragged down into whatever darkness existed beyond the plane of this world at any moment, where those things seemed to reside. Little did they know, however, that the Hamato brothers had an advantage. As long as they had each other, they might be able to get out of this place alive. Mikey snuggled deeper against Donnie, sighing in relief he'd found his brother–

He caught a glimpse of Donnie's ankle.

"Donnie!" He gasped, startling his brother. "Your ankle!"

Donnie looked back at it pitifully. "I know. It's ok, though, it doesn't hurt that much–"

" _Donnie._ " Mikey repeated, looking up at his big brother desperately, sadly. Donnie's ankle, and his whole foot, were turning terrible different shades, on top of still being heavily swollen – signs of heavy abuse and trauma only aggravated by his constant running. Mikey had no doubts anymore that something in there was certainly broken. And when he crashed in to save Mikey, just hours ago, carrying him and racing to the hideout–

"Donnie, I'm so sorry," Mikey suddenly started pouring out, "You shouldn't have had to be running around like this. Your ankle was already so bad, it must be hurting so much, I'm so sorry–"

"What are you apologizing for?" Donnie cut him off, bewildered. "It's not your fault. My ankle was already headed in this direction; it was sort of inevitable it would end up like this." He consoled, sparing it a glance. "It's nothing that can't be fixed. I promise."

"But you shouldn't have had to wear it out looking for me...and–"

Again, Donnie cut him off, but only with a look this time. "Don't start fussing about that, or you'll be hearing about your side until kingdom come."

When Mikey only stared sadly up at him in response, Donnie sighed, and dropped his muzzle against his little brother's again. "I'm serious. It might look bad, but that's because it's inflamed, and this environment isn't the best for giving it a break either. Broken bones heal." He said gently. "It's gonna be ok. I can manage it. So don't worry about it. Ok?"

Mikey hesitated uncertainly, before finally deciding to let it go for now. Well, his big brother was right about one thing – there was nothing he could say that was gonna make it better. They were all in terrible condition, like Donnie pointed out, after all, and wouldn't get real help until they got back to the Ulixes. Donnie nuzzled him, and he tried to calm down. The worry about his fever was still in the back of his mind, though, and he hoped Donnie couldn't tell.

 _"Maybe he won't notice...I don't need Donnie worrying about that."_ He thought, ignoring it in hopes his brother wouldn't realize. He'd just have to be careful to make sure –

Donnie's eyes shot open, and he looked at Mikey squarely. "You have a fever."

Mikey blanched. _"Damnit! Too much experience as the family doctor..."_

Mikey sighed, sobering. He was worried if Donnie got on him about the fever, on top of everything, he wouldn't let them go after Raph. And that was something they needed to do immediately, while Mikey knew for sure they weren't too late, already. He still had to tell Donnie what he'd found out, too. "It's...it's nothing, Donnie." He said, purposely not looking at the piercing scowl of accusation head-on. "I just started feeling a little down after that flood happened. But it's nothing big, I'm getting better. I swear."

"Mikey–" Donnie started seriously, and Mikey turned back to him, cutting him off with a look just as serious.

"Donnie, we have to hurry and find Raph. He's still alive."

"W–...what? Wait, what do you mean?" Donnie asked, confused even though his expression gave away the deep worry he'd had ever since they were separated from the third oldest, simply because it had never left.

"The..." Mikey closed his eyes, taking in a shuddering breath. "That thing appeared in there. The one with the fire."

Donnie's expression darkened slightly in horror, though Mikey got the feeling he'd already known that. "That's what was attacking you–"

"Yeah." Mikey kept his eyes on the ground, trying to push past the memory, but Donnie pulled him close in a sudden hug.

"I'm so glad y-you made it away alive." Donnie said quietly, voice breaking up. "I'm so sorry I couldn't be there to protect you–"

"Don't worry, onii-san. I'm ok now. You rescued me out of there." Mikey said, his own voice wavering emotionally at Donnie's distress. He snuggled against Donnie's head, prompting him to look at him again. "Don't feel guilty. You did nothing wrong." He grinned, before turning serious again. "But that monster – it mentioned you both. It said you were both gonna follow me to...I don't know...after I died, I think. But it seemed to know you were both still alive. Raph is definitely still alive." His expression darkening further, he looked at Donnie with worry and urgency. "We have to get to Raphie. He might be waiting for us. He could need our help,"

Taking in an anxious breath, Donnie looked down at Mikey with a troubled expression and resolve – Mikey knew that's exactly what Donnie would be doing already if he could. He crouched back over, however, and scooped Mikey back into his arms, holding him tight; and Mikey felt like he could understand Donnie's worried hesitation and clinginess, so he buried his face in the crook of Donnie's neck, letting out a small sigh.

"My ototo." Donnie said, letting out a sigh of his own. "We'll find Raph, and all of us will get out of here. I promise. I'll protect you, no matter what."

After a moment, Donnie laid Mikey back down, looking at him with cold seriousness, and Mikey matched it with a somber one of his own, afraid to say anything that could make his big brother mad. "That means, though, that you _cannot_ strain your middle any more than necessary. I'm sure it's much worse than it was before, now, and you're going to have to let me support you, however that means. And with a fever..." His eyes narrowed, and Mikey tensed up. "You'll absolutely have to go easy. I won't allow us to move distances too long at a time – we're finding a hiding place every so often to rest, and you're gonna _tell me_ if you feel the _slightest_ change in your condition. We're moving to one of the new ponds first, so I can boil some water for you to drink. I know you're massively dehydrated and the fever will only be making it worse. We have to get you some water, first and foremost." He said with finality.

Mikey blinked at him. "But...but you're still letting us move _now._ "

Donnie sighed, his firm expression drooping a little. "I really wouldn't, under _any_ other circumstances. But if we don't move now, we might not be able to. And like you said, we _need_ to keep looking for Raph."

Mikey gazed up at Donnie, grateful. He wasn't confining Mikey to rest, despite their condition. "Then," He said, moving to prop himself up, "Let's go now–"

With a constricted wheezing noise, Mikey baulked, trying to roll away onto his good side as his whole body flared up in searing pain, vaguely hearing Donnie calling his name in worry through the roar in his ears. Through his head suddenly pounding and screaming at him, seeing red, trying to throw up and his stomach's convulsions extending the burning pain, one thought prevailed – _"Shit. I can't even sit up?"_

Finally, the horrible onslaught of pain began to subside sometime after his body stopped trying to be sick, and his senses slowly came back to him. He was curled up on his good side with his arms tightly pressed against his chest, in the fetal position. Donnie was practically on top of him, hovering and supporting him in his arms, yelling for Mikey to speak to him.

"Uhg...Donnie..." Mikey finally muttered weakly, turning his head slightly to apologetically glance at his brother. "I-it's ok..."

"Damnit, Mikey," Donnie exhaled, his voice rough and exhaustively worried. He gently, slowly moved Mikey onto his back again, very carefully feeling around his side and his middle. "Don't move, ok?"

For once, Mikey complied, sighing as Donnie inspected the damage. At this point, there was nothing he could do about it; and as much as he hated making the situation way worse when he wanted them to start moving as soon as possible, he couldn't help it if he could barely move. He grit his teeth, frustrated. If he could just get standing, he could still walk, at least until they found Raph; he was sure of it. But he couldn't walk unless Donnie helped him get up, because apparently he couldn't do that alone anymore.

Donnie's expression as he inspected him wasn't helping, either. He looked incredibly morbid, so much so that Mikey started to sweat. "Uh, Donnie," He finally spoke up, and Donnie glanced at him in a bit of surprise, as if startled out of his concentration. "Am I gonna live, bro?"

"Huh?" Donnie looked genuinely confused, until he realized what Mikey's nervousness about. "Oh, sorry. It's just...y-you've really taken a beating, since we came here, and..." He paused, staring down. Mikey looked at him with worry, about to try to say something consoling, but Donnie abruptly changed the subject back to his injury. "I have no way of knowing for sure what exactly the damage is until we can get you x-rayed, as I said before. But from all I can tell, a large portion of your ribcage is probably broken, Mikey." He paused, driving the info home with a serious look. "After all the abuse you've taken, there's no saying what state it's in now. Honestly, the fact you haven't punctured a lung is a blessing. But I do think it has caused further damage to your abdomen, because there are signs that you've ripped part of your rectus abdominis."

"My...what?" Mikey asked, confused. Without saying anything, Donnie only patted his own tummy in explanation. His abdomen.

Mikey blinked at him. "I ripped my ab muscles?"

"I think so." Donnie confirmed. "Or else you wouldn't have had such a violent reaction just from trying to sit up."

Neither said anything for a moment, and Mikey got worried about Donnie's silence. His big brother had that awful, deep-ingrained, aging worry on his face that he mostly ever saw on Leo, and it made Mikey hurt inside.

Without warning, Donnie laid down beside him, pulling him into his arms without a word. Mikey welcomed it, though, snuggling into the warmth and resting against his big brother, resting in the quiet for a few moments before speaking.

"Hey, it's just like you said, bro," He said quietly, burrowing under Donnie's chin. "Broken bones heal. And torn muscles do, too. I'm sure you've also got a few of those." He peeked up at Donnie, who glanced down at him. "I'll make a deal with 'ya. Let's both save most of the worrying until we get back to the ship. Kay? Instead..." He paused, before snuggling deeper, clenching his eyes shut tight. "Let's just not get separated again..."

Donnie let out an unsettled sigh, pulling Mikey tighter. "I think I can agree to that."

It was only another few moments before Mikey looked back up at his big brother, and Donnie looked down, one thought on their minds: Raph.

.

Mikey struggled to his feet, gritting his teeth.

Donnie was supporting most of his weight, standing with his weight on his good side, holding his little brother steady with troubled concentration until his muscles stopped protesting too much for him to remain upright. Mikey's knees trembled, the change in the strain to his midsection burning awfully, until his muscles un-tensed and he thought he could manage it.

 _"I can keep going,"_ Mikey thought, staring at the exit. _"I just can't get pulled down, or I won't be able to move. But I'm not done yet."_

"Just keep your arm around my side, like this." Donnie said with that same concerned expression, pulling his left arm around him securely. "I'd tell you to lean on my shoulder, but then my trying to walk would jostle your injury way too much. Just hang on to me and try to keep your balance. If you need to stop, _tell_ me. I just need to find another stick to support my left side so we can move farther, and then we'll keep going. Maybe we should find you one too..."

Mikey shook his head. "I don't want to waste time looking for my own."

Donnie looked at him sidelong. "If you're sure."

Before they could make another move, though, a loud _BOOM_ sound echoed somewhere outside their hideout, accompanied by the sound of angry monsters. Mikey and Donnie looked at each other, panicked and hearts racing. They sounded very close.

"W-what happened?" Mikey wondered out loud, staring out the exit anxiously.

"I don't know," Donnie replied, staring in the same direction, "But I think we gotta go."

Carefully, Donnie scooped Mikey up then, surprising him. "I'll get you up this slope. Come on."

"Hey! Your foot–"

Suddenly shooting him a grin, Donnie only said, "My right foot still works."

In one leap, Donnie flew to the top of the slope, Mikey throwing an arm around Donnie's neck for stability. Donnie stopped there, though, crouched in the thicket, examining the situation before they continued – but his eyes went wide.

They were practically surrounded.

Suddenly, going back down inside their hideout seemed safer than going in any direction from here. The inky, convulsing creatures stalked about their location in terrifying numbers, clearly hunting them. Donnie shrank back in disbelief, and Mikey put a hand over his mouth.

 _"They must have heard us escape the caverns. We weren't quiet enough."_ His heart sank into his stomach.

Turning to Donnie, he started to tell his big brother to go back – they couldn't move now and survive – but a piqued sound and thudding footsteps made him go pale.

A black creature was stalking toward them, tilting and snapping its head at impossible angles in curiosity, gnashing its horrible, long jaw. Steadily, with a shriek of thrill, it started charging for them at breakneck speed.

They could only stumble back. Donnie held both arms tight around Mikey, panic on his face. Mikey hid his face in Donnie's neck–

–When suddenly, the creature's middle _exploded._

A green turtle with a red mask and furious, acid-green eyes burst through, wielding a flashing sai and a murderous rage.

" ** _GET BACK, 'YA SLIMY MOTHERFUCKERS!_** "

* * *

 _A/N:_ HELL YAYUH! OUR RED BOI IS BACK Y'ALL!

It sure is amazing the things you can get done when you're supposed to be studying for finals, right? Sew a shirt together...catch up with an anime...write for 23 hours a day and finish a fanfic chapter...

Thank you guys SO MUCH for reading and for your feedback! As always, I read every single one, and go back to re-read them often. THEY MAKE ME SO HAPPY! Special thanks to people who responded to my own notes. I appreciate it :)

I really want to keep coming out with the next chapters as fast as possible, because I really hate leaving stories hanging for a long time, even though I've got a few that need to be updated. Next chapter will have more Mamma Hen Leo, too, because he's my favorite mamma hen. Yeeeee!

Sidenote, I have a headcannon that Leo can sing, and one of his rarer hobbies is playing guitar (which he spontaneously practices ever since he found an old one of Splinter's, which he owned as a human and can still play, and sometimes does on request.) I imagine Leo not being quite as good at it as Splinter, but he's taught himself a few songs, and sometimes if he's in a fight with a bro and doesn't know what to say then he'll take it out and play one for them. Leo's the best singer of the bros too, and likes to sing them lullabyes occassionally if they're snuggled up. Sometimes his little bros will even talk him into it, cause they all love it even more than they'd admit.

If anything is messed up, or pieces of the story are missing - because this lovely, definitely modern site will just delete pieces of the story when I upload sometimes that I have to edit back in - it will likely take me a bit to fix it as I look back over the chap.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: _Crawls out of hell at 5am with arms flailing, screeching about apologies and school and exams and the chapter being difficult and more apologies about the chapter, runs away into the night with arms still flailing_

Also, for everyone's reference, the first scene on the Ulixes is set on the night of day 5 from the last chapter, after Mikey and Donnie get split up.

* * *

Laborious metal-on-metal sounds clinked in the distance.

April stumbled down the pathway to the engine room, following the sounds of construction work, exhausted.

It was four in the morning. Professor Honeycutt was still working on the ship, even at this hour, but he wasn't supposed to be in the engine room. He'd been off in another location where a lot of electrical wiring was, re-configuring them to hook to himself.

After Honeycutt's announcement of the ship's diagnostics from their most recent attack, they'd been devastated. The alien people, whether accidentally or intentionally, had completely destroyed an important motor on the Ulixes beyond repair, rendering them completely immobile, being that it was a large piece of machinery Honeycutt had no way of replacing without getting a new part entirely. Because of this, however, Honeycutt had made the decision to wire his own mechanical body to the ship, so that he could momentarily serve as the part that he needed. Being almost fully robot, Honeycutt told them how he'd built the entire ship to be harmoniously compatible with his own power core and functions for emergency situations. It could potentially cause great harm to himself, depending on how much energy was required and the danger involved with their rescue mission to get the three youngest brothers back, but in the Professor's words – it was worth the risk.

The other three had been working to finish repairs on the damage in the engine room, which had mainly consisted of sealing it off again from the vacuum of space outside and re-wiring other important functions. Sealing it off was accomplished just the previous evening, with the power of Professor Honeycutt's spare temporary paneling and welding tools. April, Casey and Leo, worn down to the bone, had dragged off for rest after that, though Casey and April had given up trying to make Leo actually get any sleep a while ago. The oldest turtle never seemed to sleep anymore; and nowadays, if they could get him to talk, it was only to discuss a repair. April had barely been able to make him eat, and she seriously doubted he ever did now except when she made him. The discovery that the younger three were, more than likely, still alive, gave hope to the whole team that had gotten them this far so quickly; but, unsurprisingly, Leo spiraled even further with restless anxiousness as more time passed, and now looked strikingly similar to a dead man walking. They couldn't be sure that, even if the three had made it to the planet alive, they were still ok, after all this time; and the two humans thought of their encounter with the one alien frequently, worried and frustrated with the additional stress it had caused Leo, but the source of their anxiety was much bigger than that– and April only worried that it would get too far out of hand before they could even reach Leo.

Making it to the engine room, she was unsurprised but upset to find it was Leo, walking about the room with tools in his hands and covered in grease and grime, working on repairs similarly to the other day April had found him here.

Tears were streaming freely down his face, however, making streaks in the black grease on his washed-out face. His eyes looked a million miles away and he mumbled to himself incoherently, looking almost random in his actions, deeply distracted. If she hadn't known any better, she might think he was in shock.

"Leo?!" Suddenly panicked, April hurried over to him, still keeping a foot or two of distance and trying to figure out what to do. Was he already having a breakdown?! She and Casey should have kept a closer eye on him. Damnit! They should've anticipated – known –

Leo turned to her at her outburst, almost looking startled himself, and seemed to just realize she was there. "A-April..."

"Leo, here, it's gonna be ok hon. Just, put those down – sit down for a second –" She said softly, trying to approach him to take the tools, but Leo turned and walked away, back toward some electrical paneling he'd been working on.

"Stop...can't stop...can't rest. Gotta keep...I have to...have to..." He mumbled, almost in a daze as he crouched over the paneling. His hands shook terribly.

Really panicking now, April grabbed her phone, still staring at Leo, determined to call Casey for help, remembered their phones didn't work in space, and put it back. Deciding to yell for help if it came to that, she walked forward slowly. _"I'll try to calm him down myself."_ She thought. _"Leo needs me, right now."_

"Leo...please..." She cajoled, cautiously hurrying to him and kneeling down in front of him, but before she could say anything else, someone else walked in.

"Hello? Leo–" Casey called, evidently looking for Leo, too, and stopping when he saw the pair. "Hey, what's going on?" He asked, trotting over.

At the same time as being relieved to see him, April quickly hushed him, just an instant before Casey caught drift of the situation and the state Leo was in. Surprised, he hesitated before slowly coming beside them, kneeling down. "Leo? What's wrong?"

Leo didn't respond, and the two wondered if he'd even registered Casey was there, sharing a concerned glance. April put her hands over Leo's shaking ones. "Leo? Can you understand me?" She asked gently, searching his eyes. "Talk to me, Leo, please. Why are you up now? What happened? Why are you crying?"

April put a hand to Leo's cheek, wiping the tears away and streaking the grime on his face. Leo stared at April with hollow, scared eyes, seemingly unaware he was crying, almost like he was unaware of where he was. She'd never seen such a desperate, broken or lost look in the oldest's face, not even since this all started, and her heart raced with fear. "I can't, April," He repeated, and April vaguely wondered if even he knew what he was saying. "I have to. W-we have to hurry. They...they're..." Suddenly dropping the tools with a metallic clatter, Leo took in a shaky breath and closed his eyes, the trembling in his hands traveling up his arms until he was shaking all over. "They're crying. They're all crying."

Casey and April stared at him for a quiet moment, as the oldest wrapped around himself, trembling. The two shared an owl-eyed look, both lost for words. "What? What do you mean?" April finally asked, almost in disbelief, both terrified they knew exactly what he meant.

"My brothers!" Leo finally exclaimed, hysterically upset, and April and Casey startled back. "My baby brothers! They're all crying! Something's horribly wrong, _everything's_ wrong, and they're all _crying –_ " Cutting himself off, he dropped his face into his hands, and right there, started sobbing.

In was only a fraction of an instant that they hesitated before lunging at Leo with open arms – though Casey managed to grab a hold of Leo in a firm, tight hug first, supporting his turtle brother with a somber face. They said nothing as they held onto him – there was nothing they could say – they just cried with him on the floor, trying to hug the oldest tight enough to hold him together. The two humans were still in a panic, trying to figure out what was happening – all Leo said was that his brothers were crying, and seemed too out of it himself to really know anything else. What did that mean? If all of his little sibling were crying, how would he know? April knew the boys all had a kind of special connection, but something like that went beyond anything she'd ever heard of before, even amongst this family of hers. Part of her was scared that Leo really was just finally snapping, but her intuition said otherwise, nagging that there was real reason to worry. And if they were all crying, her morbid worry begged to know why – but she shook her head, trying to clear away the thought; it was too painful to think about when they couldn't do a thing about it. All that either of them could do was cry with Leo at the horror of it, overcome with emotion.

After a little while, Leo stirred, and the two released their hold on him as he shakily got up, tears still running down his face.

When he took a tentative step towards the back of the room, April and Casey quickly got up, too. "Leo, what are you doing?" April asked, reaching out to him.

"They...they need me." Leo said, that dazed look still in his eyes, his voice weak and desperate. "I can't wait any longer. I-I have to...I can make it...with a space suit–"

" _ **Leo**_ **.** " Both humans grabbed onto him immediately, and Leo looked at them desperately, too weak to fight.

"No, Leo, you _can't_ make it with a space suit. That's impossible, it's too far, Professor Honeycutt already said so." Casey said firmly, placing both hands on his shoulders.

"Casey's right Leo." April added, wrapping around one of his arms and putting a hand to his face, guiding him to really _look_ at her. "Leo, we're gonna get them. I swear to God, we're gonna get them, and they're gonna be ok. The Professor is hooking himself up to the ship right now, so that we can get there as fast as possible. And when we get there, there won't be anything that can keep us from them, and they're gonna be _ok._ Ok?"

Leo only looked at April for a moment, and something broke in her own chest to see the broken heart in his face. Clenching his eyes shut, he put a fist to his chest, his voice going uncharacteristically quiet. "It hurts."

April's face sank in grief, and shared a look with Casey, who looked the same. "Come on Leo." Casey said, wrapping one of the turtle's arms around his shoulders as April wrapped around his middle, and they guided him out of the room. "Let's get a hot cup of tea. Just sit down for a little bit, and then we'll check in with Professor Honeycutt. We'll do whatever he needs us to do to finish the ship. How does that sound?"

Leo didn't respond, but leaned heavily against April and Casey as they led him back toward the main room, eyes closed. April and Casey couldn't help exchanging worried looks on the way, never letting their turtle brother go or straying too far.

How they ended up in such a tragic situation, with a huge chunk of their family missing and stranded in space unable to reach them, hurt too much to think about – but if there was one thing they all knew for sure, it was they had to hurry.

.

.

Raph exploded through the monster's middle, black ink flying everywhere and the creature whaling angrily.

Mikey and Donnie stumbled back, unable to believe what they were seeing – almost too afraid to. Raph...here, all of a sudden – somehow – alive and in one piece. It couldn't be possible...but...

Amidst the chaos, tears slipped down the younger brothers' cheeks, staring owl-eyed at their big brother. " _Raph!_ "

Sending them a look full of fire and emotion, Raph tumbled onto the ground and bolted for them, barely outpacing the creatures rushing them. Skidding to a halt, Raph wrapped one arm around them both, preparing to make an escape – and it felt unreal as the trio was reunited at last, the younger two watching Raph blearily. "Let's get outta here, huh?"

"W-wait," Donnie blubbered through his tears, slipping out of Raph's arm at the last moment, securing Mikey and clasping onto his back. "Hold onto Mikey. He can't hang on himself."

Their older brother didn't have the time to spare Mikey a worried look, but they could almost feel it in his tense expression and racing heartbeat as he leapt away, narrowly missing a charging monster as its head came down violently into the earth where they'd just been, jaw gnashing. Both younger brothers cried out as dirt and dust kicked up in their direction, but Raph raced on, scowling in determination to escape as he headed away from the desert city.

Even as Raph ran as fast as he could, the monsters were too fast and there were too many, practically surrounding them, and soon Raph was doing all he could just to avoid them, only able to dodge by using the utmost of his ninja training and slipping between the much bigger creatures – but even that was quickly proving not enough.

He scoffed loudly in frustration, and Donnie lowered his head closer to Raph's, cringing as an inky limb sailed overhead. "We've gotta hide! We can't outrun them now!" Donnie yelled over the chaos and wailing.

Looking wildly about, Raph eyed the earthen structures near them, cliffs towering over the other side of the landscape. They were still close to the desert city. "It looks like there's caves in that cliff. We'll hide in one of them," Raph shouted back, already sprinting there in an attempt to escape the crowd of monsters. Mikey gripped his big brother more tightly, watching their surroundings with wide eyes and deciding this was probably the most inappropriate moment to announce his morbid fear of re-entering any caves. He flinched with a suddenly intense wave of nausea, however, and looked wildly about to find the cause, spotting the monster that had just appeared directly behind them.

" _RAPH_ –!" He warned, but was only able to voice as much before the monster struck out, lurching to chomp them with its long, howling jaw and terrifying speed. Raph whipped around and struck out with his free arm wielding his sai–

The weapon grazed across the creature's head, clearly off target from where Raph was aiming, but it was still enough to make the monster recoil back, and something unseen seemed to amplify the force of the cut so black ink splashed wildly. " _Ghh–!_ " Raph groaned, clenching his teeth in apparent pain. The thing roared loud enough to make the group cringe and cover their ears, when it struck out angrily with one arm with a speed and force Raph couldn't dodge this time.

" _Aahh!_ " The three were thrown hard onto the ground, tumbling for several feet. Donnie, realizing the situation, managed to twist away from Raph and latch onto Mikey at the last second, shielding him from the brunt of the impact as they landed, but the jarring landing still sent his head swimming and he folded in on himself, clenching his teeth against the nausea and fighting not to black out.

"Guys!" Raph called out, pain in his voice as he held his side where the monster struck, immediately scrambling to scoop them back up.

" _Raph, watch out!_ " Donnie cried, diving over Mikey to shield him as the same monster – and several others – lunged after them, roaring angrily.

Scowling darkly, Raph switched the sai to his good hand, giving it a menacing spin. Metal and acid-green eyes flashing, Raph roared back, slicing in an arch at the creatures close enough to slash open, and even monsters he'd only managed to nick stumbled and jerked backwards. Then, matching the noise around them with a war cry, he sprinted at the monster that had attacked them and leapt, landing hard on its head.

" _Hurt my little brothers and see what happens, piece 'a_ _ **shit!**_ " He spat venomously, raising his sai into the air, and with a heave, impaled the monster straight through the head.

The thing wailed in agony, throwing Raph around as it tossed its head, and finally smashed its arm into him and sent him flying off. Raph grunted at the impact and tumbled as Mikey and Donnie cried out for him, Donnie throwing Mikey over his back to escape charging monsters and stumble for Raph, but to the older's credit, he kept a hold of his sai and continued lashing out at oncoming monsters as he scrambled to the younger two, tossing them up again to make a quick escape.

The creature he'd burst through the middle of had been thrashing since the beginning of the fight, causing chaos, and by now was finally being overcome by the others, while they swarmed the one that Raph had just slain. A few chased the group, but the chaos had given them just enough time for a head start, and the three looked at each other, relieved.

Mikey lurched with nausea again, and panicked. _No, not again. NOT AGAIN!_ Donnie and Raph seemed to notice this time, however, giving Raph just enough time to dig his heels in the ground and start skidding to a halt as one of the monsters chasing them suddenly appeared in front of them, swiping. Trying to stop, Raph could only turn to his side again, trying to shield the younger two from impact.

" _RRAAAAAA!_ " Before they knew what was going on, Donnie was leaping over Raph's back, grabbing his sai in both hands. Launching from his shell, Donnie lunged at the beast, crying out angrily and swiping back at it.

" _DONNIE!_ " Raph cried in panic, reaching out to stop his brother, but not fast enough – Donnie sliced the monster's arm, the force of the impact again appearing much stronger than normal, as black ink splayed from the wound. Roaring furiously, it lashed about, Donnie trying as hard as he could to avoid being struck and climb up the monster's back. In a panic, Raph rushed forward to help, determined to distract the monster's attention from trying to murder his little brother, but hardy affective in his effort to shield the one he held onto. When Donnie finally managed to climb up the monster, he lunged at the back of its head, but with its violent movement he missed and the sai plunged into its other arm, instead. Gritting his teeth, Donnie cried out angrily and wrenched the sai as hard as he could, tearing the beast's whole arm off.

Roaring, the monster went down, but not before striking out one more time in writhing fury, striking Donnie in the head with a hard kick.

" _Ack–!_ " Donnie tumbled several feet across the ground, sai clanging after him, and laid still.

" _DONNIE!_ " Raph and Mikey both cried out, Raph bolting around the raging monster to his little brother. Grabbing up his sai on the way, he scooped Donnie up and threw him over his shoulder opposite of Mikey, and raced away from the other monsters towards the cliffside.

.

" _Nng..._ "

Donnie groaned, shifting. Suddenly realizing Raph was still running, he turned slightly, looking around. He was slung over his brother's shoulder, and they were climbing up a tall earth structure, close to the cliffside where a cave entrance was. He must have not been out for long.

"Donnie?" Raph said, he and Mikey both peering at him.

Donnie looked back at him, meeting the bright green eyes, filled with anxiety and determination and suffering. The ones he'd been afraid he'd never see again.

His mouth set into a firm line. _"Raph..."_

After another minute, Raph made it to the top of the earth structure. Gaging the short distance for a moment, Raph leapt into the cave entrance, and trudged to the nearest wall once inside.

Hitting his knees a little harder than he should have, Raph gingerly, carefully set the other two down against the wall. The two younger brothers looked up at the older, beaten, battered and littered with scorch wounds, much worse for wear than they'd initially been able to tell. For an instant, there were only the quiet, distant sounds of the gloomy landscape outside, as all three struggled to speak.

 _"RUN!"_ The memory of Raph's voice came back to Donnie. _"GET OUT OF HERE, RUN, RUN!"_

 _Donnie held onto Mikey tightly, staring in disbelief and horror at their older brother, breaking down with the decision he had to make._

Donnie let out a shaky sigh, shutting his eyes tight against the memory.

Before Raph could say anything, he suddenly got up, swaying slightly as he found himself still dizzy and his head pounding from the impact earlier, and Raph reached anxiously for him, wanting to pull him back down, but Donnie held up a hand to stop him. Opening his mouth to speak, he suddenly choked on his own words, hesitating as tears unexpectedly welled up in his eyes. When he found his voice again, it was broken and wavering.

"I'm sorry," He cried. "I'm so sorry. You don't ever have to forgive me. You don't ever have to look at me again. But I need you to know I….h-how much I….." Pausing, he ducked his head and clenched his fists, fighting desperately against his emotions. "...I never wanted to leave you – abandon you. And being sorry won't ever fix it. But I...I...I didn't know what..." His voice broke, and he shook his head. "I had nightmares every time I closed my eyes after we got separated. That you were gone, and it was all my fault. I need you to know, even though nothing I do can ever...ever...I still love you, and I..."

He paused again, shoulders trembling. Raph finally got up, however, facing Donnie with a blank expression, and the two looked at each other for a second.

 _"You don't ever have to forgive me."_ Donnie repeated in his thoughts, closing his eyes and ducking his head away from Raph's gaze. _"Ever–"_

Raph was suddenly wrapped around him, nearly making him stumble on his bad foot and knock him over.

Donnie stood there, trembling and tears finally running down his face, staring at the opposite cave wall in shock. "R...Raph?"

"Shut up, you asshole." Raph mumbled back, fighting with all his strength to keep the emotion from taking away his own voice, squeezing him tighter as he ducked his head into his little brother's shoulder. "Shut the hell up, you frickin'….monster-charging…..stupid idiot…..asshole…."

Donnie's face crumpled, and after a moment, he dropped his own face into his big brother's, crying. Mikey smiled, watching the pair before scrubbing at his own tears.

Suddenly holding him at arm's length, Raph stared at Donnie squarely, scowling with frustration. His left arm fell away, gripping Donnie's shoulder with his right hand. "Now you listen to me good – _both_ 'a ya – 'cause I wanna be clear about something right now, and I don't wanna have to say this again," He growled, looking at them both seriously. "Back there, when they were comin' for us, if you two would have went back for me, none of the three of us would be here right now, and that's a promise." He let that statement settle in for a moment, the air heavy as he looked between the two of them. "They're too strong and violent. We were all injured, and I'm the only one left with weapons to defend myself with. I wouldn't have been able to protect you both and get away. Don, the only thing you did is _protect_ the two of you. Like I told you to." His face tensing with emotion, he gripped Donnie a little tighter. "You didn't abandon me, Donnie. Neither of you did. You _lived._ Do you understand? Don't you _dare_ ever let me hear you talking like that again, or those _things_ outside won't be what you should be afraid of."

Staring at Raph for a moment, Donnie suddenly squeezed his eyes shut and hugged Raph again, burying back into his shoulder. " _Oniisan..._ "

Sighing, Raph wrapped his right arm tight around Donnie, pulling him back down to sit on the ground. "And don't you _ever_ attack those things like that again, 'ya dumbass, you hear me? I'm _so_ very serious. If you get yourself killed, I'mma _kill_ you."

He didn't get a response, but accepted Donnie's helpless sniffling as good enough. He sent Mikey a smile, starting to reach out to him, but when he saw the emotional, upset look on his littlest brother's face, he frowned in concern. Noticing something was wrong, Donnie turned around, too.

Mikey scrubbed at his face for a moment, and gave Raph a wobbly smile, fresh tears coming down. "I knew you were alive, Raph." He said quietly. "I knew it."

Both brothers giving their youngest an anxious, troubled look, they quickly got down to snuggle up beside him, pulling him into their arms. Mikey reached out with his left arm to wrap around Raph's neck, burying against him and crying quietly, and Raph pulled Mikey and Donnie snuggly to him with his right, both older brothers unable to stop their own upset tears. Donnie nuzzled closer to Mikey as he snuggled as close against his big brothers as he could, his broken heart in his exhausted, scared voice.

"I'm right here, ototos. I'm right here..." Raph said quietly, burying his head between theirs and rocking them until Mikey's crying quieted down, all three drifting off.

.

.

.

 _Darkness._

 _Where was he?_

 _How did he get here? He couldn't remember. It was dark and cold, and something felt awful and foreboding about this place, as if he was on the run, like he wasn't supposed to be there. He was lying on the ground and could barely move his body, like it was filled with cement, and all his movements were in slow motion. He was all alone. He wanted his brothers._

 _Something moved quickly out of the corner of his eye in the darkness, and he turned to look, but nothing was there. He started to tremble, sweating in fear with the vague sensation that he was sitting in the open, surrounded. Quiet whispering reached his ears from some indiscernible location. Something loud boomed in front of him, and he turned to look in panic, but nothing was there, either. He looked wildly around, trembling and panicking, terrified. Another movement to his left, and he turned and stared into the darkness, trying to make out what was there._

 _Without any warning, something was suddenly on him, screeching with deafening volume and clawing at his body. It was covered all over in eyes that rolled back, long jaw with sharp teeth that leaned in, snapping and hungry to sink into him. He tried to scream, lash out, but his body wouldn't move and there were suddenly a hundred more, pouring in from all sides; he tried to escape, he tried to–_

To–

Mikey flinched violently, covering his face in terror and a horrified whimper escaping him. He didn't know what was happening or where he was. But, just as quickly, he registered Donnie and Raph, wrapped around him and trying to soothe him, and the scream that that had been trying to bubble up his throat since he startled awake, died. He could only lay there for a moment, trying to piece everything back together and give his speeding heart time to slow down, as it finally clicked - _nightmare_.

But…it had felt so real.

When he managed to peek his eyes open, it appeared to be late afternoon, according to the color and light of the dark sky, though it was hard to tell. Donnie and Raph seemed to have had more notice for his nightmare than he did, though, because one was pulling him snuggly against him and humming comfortingly, shielding him from the world, and the other was digging a muzzle between his hands now to nuzzle his face, and he closed his eyes again. He whimpered in lingering fear and relief, and probably would've cried if he weren't so dehydrated, sinking further into his brothers like a blanket. He wanted to stay awake, get his bearings again and talk to them – there was so much he needed to tell and so many questions he and Donnie had to ask, if his brain could only grab onto any of that slippery information right now – but his body refused and baulked against it with everything it was, drawing him back toward sleep. He was too weak to fight it; so he sighed, burying his face into a warm shoulder, letting the soothing humming carry him back off to sleep, and really feeling warm for the first time in ages.

Donnie removed his hand from Mikey's forehead, frowning deep with concern.

"How long has he had a fever?" Raph quietly asked. The three hadn't really had a chance to talk yet, but the state of their youngest brother was obvious, Raph making it clear he'd noticed. There was deep concern in his face, knowing as well as Donnie did the dangers of becoming so ill here.

Donnie sighed, releasing Mikey and gently tucking him against his bigger brother to sit up and look down on them both. "I found him that way. We got separated for a day and when I found him again, he already had a slight fever. He's likely just in the beginning stages."

"He needs water." Raph stated, and Donnie nodded, agreeing on the urgent issue. Now, more than ever, they were going to have to solve their water problem, because Mikey wouldn't last long if they didn't.

Getting up – Donnie didn't see any reason to wait any longer – he started trying to hobble to the cave entrance to make his way back down, still swaying a little from the recent head pummeling and starting to say he'd look for a way to get some while Raph watched Mikey, but Raph had gently laid Mikey down and was on his feet, hand latched onto Donnie's arm and stopping him as effectively as a ship anchor before Donnie had even registered him moving, and he froze in shock.

"You ain't goin' out there, Donnie." Raph said, a humored lilt still to his voice, but an uncharacteristic, dark seriousness from his older brother that Donnie stared back at with a nervous smile. "Not alone, and not right now."

Sighing, Donnie gave up, letting Raph unnecessarily hoist him up onto his back and walk him back the six feet to where Mikey was, sitting him down beside him.

"You ain't walking anywhere you ain't gotta without support anymore, you hear me?" Raph said, using his good arm to put a hand on his hip as he stared down at him. "I'm here now, and you're staying off of that ankle – or what's left of it, anyway." He frowned disapprovingly, exaggerating the state it had gotten into.

Donnie bristled a little, in the midst of detaching his shoulder strap and removing his waist belt to cushion Mikey's feverish head. Mikey's temperature had risen in a sharp spike, and the cool air would probably do him some good for a few moments. "You're in some condition to be talking! Raph, you're a mess!" Before Raph could stop him, he got on his knees and pulled his big brother down, taking hold of his arms to look him over and keep him there. "You look like you've been through hell. You haven't been moving your left arm without being in pain, your shoulder is a flaming _disaster,_ which you carried me on earlier regardless, and–" Donnie's hands ghosted over him then, as if afraid to touch him. "You're covered in burns!"

"Yeah…some freaky fire-breathing dragon thing came after me a while back." Raph said darkly, his sarcasm badly covering the seriousness of what he'd seen, and he involuntarily twinged in pain from one of them. Donnie looked him over sadly; he and Mikey had noticed the little burns scattered across his right side before, but hadn't had the time to point them out. He almost wanted to say Raph's had started to recede since they'd been resting, but he hadn't gotten a good enough look before. How long had Raph had these?

"It attacked you too?" Donnie asked, worried. "It came after me and Mikey as well – a couple different times." He added, sending a troubled look at his sleeping brother. "We barely got away. But we found out the burns heal in a weird way."

Seeming deeply disturbed by the fact that he wasn't the only one who'd encountered that monster, and confused at Donnie's last comment, Raph opened his mouth to ask a question, but without a word, Donnie took his right arm and placed a hand over the worst burn – a patch on his outer arm about as big as his hand. Just as he'd hoped, it started receding quicker, making a slight _hiss_ noise as if expelling heat.

Startled, Raph grunted in pain and flinched his arm away, rubbing the spot in astonishment. "How'd you do that?"

Donnie looked at him seriously, brow furrowing in calculation. "I don't know. The burns inflicted by that one thing seem to respond to care. Mikey said a while ago he thinks they're tied in that way, somehow." Concerned, he pulled Raph's arm back to inspect it again. "Yours look like they're leaving scars, though. They're taking longer – and this one doesn't look so good." He said, trying to heal more as he looked them over with worry, Raph gritting his teeth for a second against the pain. The one larger burn seemed to be leaving behind a mottled injury, as if the burn had seared deeper into his brother over time before beginning to heal, and Donnie was worried about the number of open wounds on his big brother. The burns on the backs of his own arms had left their own nasty scuffs when Mikey healed them a day ago. "How long have you had these? That might affect things somehow. Have you noticed them get any worse? Also, _please_ tell me what happened to your shoulder! How much does it hurt to move your arm? Can you move your fingers? What is your range of motion?" Looking up at Raph again with critical analysis and worry, he was surprised to find Raph grinning at him.

"Stop your fussing." Raph teased, giving him a humored, sharp smile. "I can move my fingers. You saw me attack that thing with my sai in my left hand back there." Trying to make some angry comeback, Donnie scowled, frustrated he'd forgotten. "And I don't know how the burns work or anything, but – they're not the worst thing in the world. I'll live."

Donnie was about to protest, but suddenly realized the gratefulness in Raph's smile. They must've been hurting, after all, and healing them must've been taking an extra burden off. Donnie finally returned a sharp scoff. "Punk. You wouldn't know the worst thing in the world if it bit you in the ass."

Raph actually laughed, and Donnie couldn't help the smile that spread across his face from that, like he'd been gifted. It felt like forever since he'd heard that.

"Oh!" Donnie blinked, suddenly remembering. "And your sai! You're missing one. What happened to the other one?"

Surprised at the change in subject, Raph suddenly scoffed in open irritation at this, clearly still angry about that. "Tch! It got stuck in the guts of one of those tar freaks, and then it transported and disappeared. I don't even know if the damn thing exists anymore,"

Donnie sighed in sympathy, but couldn't help but grin with humor at how it happened, absently running a free hand over Mikey's forehead, checking his temperature and soothing the youngest at once. "Well, at least it was your sai, and not you."

"You're tellin' me." Raph sat back on his heels, muttering something and lost in thought about his sai now. A chord of irritation struck in Donnie at a sudden thought, though, and he scowled until Raph noticed, snapping out of his train of thought with an apprehensive look. "Wha–"

"Have you been attacking them, Raph? The monsters?"

There was a beat of silence as they stared at each other, Donnie determined and Raph shocked. "Wh – _no!_ I mean, not exactly..." Sighing, Raph rolled his head nervously to the side, mulling it over. When Donnie gave him a more irritated look, Raph pulled his arm back for a moment to raise his hand in defense, leaning away. "Stop lookin' at me like that! It ain't like I've been hunting them or something stupid! Look, I..." Scratching his head in frustration, he finally settled on Donnie with a serious look. "Look, I know I kinda lost it on those two, and I'm kinda beat up, but don't think I've been fighting them. In fact, I've been avoiding them like lookin' at them will kill me, 'cause it probably could. They've been coming after _me,_ cause I've been looking for you guys." He emphasized that piece of information with a harder stare. "I've been running like mad, looking everywhere, and had to fight my way out of a few situations – mostly because I was scared of what would become of you both if I _didn't_. That's how this–" He pointed at his shoulder, "–Happened." Grimacing slightly, he then put that hand over the mangled joint. "Not because I wanted it to, believe me."

His anger had been slowly melting into horrible realization as Raph explained, and now he looked at his big brother in plain horror and grief. "Oh, Raph," He reached out to him. "I know that – I knew you must've been looking for us like crazy. You must've been so worried, and you were in so much danger –" Reaching out to the wounded shoulder, Donnie intended to finally give it a better inspection, but when both hands landed over Raph's supporting one, he shuddered with sudden, overpowering grief, and couldn't do any more. He gently leaned over that shoulder in anguish of what Raph must've gone through. _"He was so worried, and all alone that whole time."_ Donnie thought. _"Looking for us, fighting in a panic, not knowing if..."_

Quickly slipping his hand out from under Donnie's, Raph suddenly put it around the back of Donnie's head, pulling him closer into a loose hug. Raph sat back off of his legs, holding the younger as he looked down at Mikey with a somber expression.

"I was." He admitted, going quiet and unusually serious. "I was terrified. Lookin' for you both everywhere. Just like I'm sure you were looking for me. But it's ok now, we found each other, and we're gonna make sure nothing happens to each other, just like before." He leaned back to look at Donnie, before suddenly grinning at him – that knowing, confident, secretive grin only Raph could give, and always made them feel like everything was going to be ok. "So don't worry about it too much, 'k?"

Face scrunching, Donnie wrapped tightly around Raph in frustration, pressing into his good shoulder. A memory flashed through his mind of Raph screaming at them, telling them to run away as the monsters closed in around him, fighting them all like he was going to take every one of them down, looking as if he was being eaten alive in the flood of black. Days of torture, neither little brother knowing if he had been.

"I love you, stupid idiot..."

Smiling, Raph squeezed him back. "I love you too, nerd."

They sat for another minute, giving their nerves time to calm again and just appreciating being together as three again. Raph's eyes drifted back to Mikey and his face fell, leaning slightly to stroke his hand over the smaller's face. Mikey moaned lightly in sleep, leaning into the hand and looking to be in mild discomfort. Donnie leaned back and followed the action, before they shared a worried look.

"If we make a fire, we can find something to boil some water." Raph said. "I'll have to go get some kindling though, and we need to be able to transport the water and boil it in something."

Donnie tried to protest Raph doing anything alone, but looked back at Mikey again. One of them would have to stay with him to watch over him, regardless. He could think of a way to make things easier, though, and he turned back to Raph.

"There were a few more cave entrances in this cliff face. One of them was closer to the ground, and there are pockets of water down there now. It wouldn't be as safe as being up here...but if we got closer, we wouldn't have to travel far with water."

Raph nodded. Wasting no time, with Donnie's help, he hoisted Mikey onto his back as gently as possible; and with Donnie hanging onto the right arm carrying Mikey, the trio carefully started on their way out, but Raph suddenly swayed, nearly toppling over.

"Whoa!" Donnie steadied him, quickly wrapping his arms around his big brother. "Raph?!"

"S-sorry, sorry." Raph mumbled, looking back at Mikey before clenching his eyes tight momentarily, in an apparent effort to clear out dizziness. "Just...got up too quick I guess..."

"Raph..." Donnie looked him over again, and his eyes landed on a bruise on Raph's head he'd noticed before. Most of it was covered up by his bandana, though. "Did you hit your head?"

Raph didn't answer right away, until he looked away and mumbled again, "...Just a little, not anything to worry about. I'm fine, let's go–"

"Raph, just _hold_ on." Donnie gently persuaded, hobbling around in front to look at him pleadingly. "If you have a head injury, please, don't hide it. I don't want you suddenly careening down the cliffside."

Raph hesitated, eventually sighing. "I know, I know. Actually...one of those black things slugged me from behind a while back. I thought I was hidden, but then suddenly it was there. I think it would've taken my head off completely if I hadn't sensed it at the last second." He turned his head as Donnie reached to examine it, moving his headband momentarily and letting out a sympathetic sound at the dark colors there. Raph tensed in pain from the sensitive area, so Donnie only briefly examined it before replacing the bandana. "I've had it for a few days, so it's not like it's somethin' to worry about. I'm sure it's bruised to hell 'cause it hurts like hell, but it's fine as long as I take it easy. I swear."

Despite insisting it wasn't a big deal, Donnie ignored him and met his gaze with a serious face, demanding more information for diagnosis. "Did you black out at any time from being hit?"

"No, I didn't black out."

"You remember being struck when this happened and how it occurred, right? The whole event, and afterwards as well?"

"Yeah. Mostly."

" _Mostly?_ "

"I mean, it _happening_ and all." Raph insisted, frustrated. "I might have lost a few seconds between impact and _ow._ "

Donnie scowled. "Were you disoriented afterward, or feel any confusion?"

"Other than wonderin' if I got hit by a train for a second, no."

Sighing, Donnie crossed his arms with a troubled expression, looking him over critically for a moment before speaking. "You might have a slight concussion. I don't think it's too severe, but that's not to say it's because you weren't hit hard enough. And stay _away_ from the monsters! If you take another blow to the head while you're recovering from this one, your brain can swell up and kill you. We're lucky that didn't already happen!"

"Alright, alright, already." Raph gave Donnie a sharp, humored grin, resisted the urge to call his brother Mother Hen Junior. "Look, it's not gonna get me slugged again. I've been workin' around it for a few days now, I'd know if something were seriously wrong."

Donnie gave him a glare, mentally asking Leo, wherever he may be, how in the world he was gonna keep Raph from getting himself killed. After getting a weird feeling that Leo would've said, "Just keep him occupied with the arguing", Donnie moved to grab onto him for support again, moving one of Raph's bandana tails off of Mikey's face with a small grin before attempting to pull Raph forward. "I'm sure you think so, Wonder Woman. Don't blame me when your laser eyes don't work."

Raph rolled his eyes, and the group continued outside. "Anyway, _you're_ the one that blacked out after getting socked in the head, if I may remind you…."

"My thinking has been perfectly clear, _thank you._ " Donnie retorted, their voices fading as they made their way down. "I've shown no signs of…."

.

.

Finding supplies for water that was safe to drink was a long, arduous process. After a short argument, Raph left Donnie in the tunnel closer to ground-level with Mikey, once the two agreed on a whistle for help. Once Raph brought back as much dead foliage as possible, he went in search of something to carry water with while Donnie started the fire, trying to keep Mikey warm, who had started shivering. The new cliffside cave they were in went deeper into the ground in what looked like a cave system, but the tunnels got a little smaller further inside, and Raph loathed the idea of crouching through there or getting lost. Unable to find anything suitable for the job, Raph went back to their hideaway at a loss; but, on the way, he found a large rock, a little bigger than both of his hands, with a slight curve shape to it. Taking it back inside the cave, he sat in front of the fire Donnie made and took out his sai, picking away at it to make a bowl.

Donnie had re-situated Mikey closer to the fire and wrapped around him opposite of it, giving as much warmth to his shivering little brother as possible. Raph sent the pair worried looks as he chipped at the rock. Donnie would feel Mikey's forehead occasionally, making unsatisfied looks and double-checking the rest of his wounds. He knew they weren't in ideal condition to be recovering from illness, but even so, the looks on Donnie's face made Raph worry their youngest was in serious danger.

"Do you think he's fighting infection?" Raph suddenly asked, though he had the feeling he already knew. That was the worst scenario he could think of, yet he couldn't help but stress about it, being all too likely. Donnie himself was fighting infection from his ankle, and whether or not he'd noticed, the second-youngest been a little feverish, too – Raph had chosen not to say anything about it, though; not only because there was nothing they could do right now, but with the amount of time his shoulder had been so bad, he'd been feeling it as well.

Donnie sighed. "I don't know, to be honest." He said. "Most of Mikey's wounds are internal. If he had to battle infection, on top of all that..." He shook his head, quickly giving Raph an apologetic look. "Though, if that were the case, I have reason to believe he would've been worse than this already, and there are other symptoms he doesn't have, too."

Raph sighed as well, an unsaid "yet" seeming to hang in the air, unconvinced and equally troubled; but with the position they were in, the most they could do was help him recover, and try not to think about it. That said, the two older brothers didn't have good chances of succeeding at the last one.

Looking at the rock he'd chiseled a divot into, Raph got up to head back out. "I'm gonna get some water boilin'."

After much searching and effort, Raph managed to find a few solid sticks, which he fit together over the fire to make a resting place for the new bowl, full of water. Once it had boiled for a little while, he set it down off of the fire to let it cool again.

Coming to sit back down, Raph sat cross-legged in front of the fire with a small grunt of pain, staring moodily into the flames. Donnie watched the older brother for a minute, thoughts drifting. In quiet moments like this, even with the stress of escaping the danger around them, it still struck Donnie that Raph was finally reunited with them again. They'd worried about him and missed him for days, but it had felt like weeks. Raph had clearly been just as anxious, daresay more, and Donnie noticed how much more on-edge he was now, even since they got here – and that was saying something. Seeing his normally overconfident, cocky big brother turn quiet with razor's-edge anxiety, pain, and self-doubt made him hurt. Hurt in the same way the looks on Leo's face hurt, sometimes…

His oldest brother's face crossed his mind in an instance of heartbreak, and he grimaced. The most grief Donnie had ever seen Leo in surely wouldn't compare to what he must be going through now; and the longer they were separated, the more grief the three of them went through, too. Trying to survive, ironically, was a good way to try not to think about it.

Now that they were together again, though, what worried Donnie was keeping Raph out of danger trying to protect them. If they were forced into a similar situation like last time, and Raph outed himself to protect them, Donnie wasn't sure they'd get him back again.

"Raph," He finally spoke up, getting the older's attention, who seemed startled out of his own thoughts before looking at Donnie. "I…I've been thinking, and…I think we should revise our strategy. For getting home."

Raph looked at him for a second before responding. "Yeah, me too."

Donnie blinked at him. "You have?"

"Yeah." Raph nodded slowly, eyes drifting back to the fire. For a moment, it seemed like he wouldn't continue, but he suddenly looked back at Donnie, and behind the shadows flickering across his face from the fire, there was slight apprehension. "These past few days, I've been…feeling worse and worse about this place. I got this real awful feeling that we're gettin' too close to something. The more of this place I've seen, the more I've been thinkin'….we're probably gonna have to rely on Leo and the others for this one."

He paused, and they looked at each other in silence for a moment as Donnie took this in. "This place messes with me in a way I don't know how to describe." Raph said more quietly, looking thoughtfully at Mikey. "And I know we've said that before, but I've been watchin' it really drive Mikey nuts, and it sits in my chest like somethin' black and heavy, like something's wrong. That's the way I feel." Raph sat back a little more, as if in finality of his thoughts. "I don't think we need to be moving, or looking for a way to get back. We need to pick the safest place we can reach, hide there and try to wait."

Donnie stared at Raph, processing for a minute before responding. Clearly, that was their best option right now, and Raph and Mikey were easily the most intuitive of the four brothers, so if Raph - the least vocal - said hide, they probably should. Still, it almost surprised him hearing his brother say it. He'd been just as anxious as Donnie to contact the Ulixes before, if not more so; and now, much more pressing than that was finding materials to keep them alive.

"That's kind of in line with what I was thinking." Donnie responded. "This place does…give me vibes like that, too….and Mikey's definitely been spooked about something; you and him both. But this area….this desert-type place is too dangerous. I don't think we can stay here. Besides, what if Mikey gets worse? There might still be some herbs in those woods that can help him."

"There ain't, Donnie." Raph said with conviction, looking at his little brother squarely. "You know everything back there was dead. And I looked long enough to know."

There was a heavy silence as they both independently mulled the matter over in heavy, troubled thought. This area was still dangerous – there were more creatures here than any other area they'd been in – but the struggles they'd encounter trying to leave were obvious, and there was equally little they could do about the problems they were facing.

Suddenly, though, Mikey's head rolled, lightly bumping Donnie's arm and mumbling, seemingly still struggling out of a dream.

"Mikey!" Surprised, Donnie sat up, checking Mikey with a hand to his cheek as Raph crawled closer, looking him over.

Getting down on his stomach, Raph poked Mikey's forehead with his muzzle, giving him a grin. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

Blearily registering his two brothers, and too tired to respond, Mikey grinned back, leaning back against Raph's snuggles. Donnie got up and grabbed the rock with the water, dipping a finger in it for a taste-test first. None of the acidic qualities seemed to remain, and despite a distinct rock-soup flavor, it seemed safe, so he turned the chiseled-out spout side toward Mikey.

"We boiled some water. It's still warm and doesn't taste the best, but I'd wager you probably don't care."

"You guys have been hard at work…" Mikey said, eyeing the water with something just short of awe. "Did you…get any….yet–"

"Quit yappin' and drink." Raph got up to sit on his knees, gently propping Mikey's head on his legs and holding him steady.

"Just go slow, ok? It's been forever since you've had water you can stomach." Donnie dipped it carefully to let him drink. At first, Mikey had to cough for a second when it irritated his dry throat, but he managed to drink all of it, and they laid him down again, Donnie adjusting the waist band supporting his head.

"How are 'ya feeling, Mike?" Raph asked gently, coming around to look at him properly and resting a hand on the younger's face, not bothering to keep the slight worry out of his expression.

Mikey's eyes flickered down for a second, contemplating how to answer. Finally, he said, "M' head hurts…." Apparently disregarding everything else.

Giving him a sad, sympathetic look, Raph laid down on his stomach again, so he was level with his little brother. "Hey, I meant 'ta tell you….I'm sorry about your slingshot."

It was a moment before Mikey responded, giving Raph a puzzled look. "My…what?" Then, the lightbulb came on. " _The slingshot!_ I….forgot all about it."

Raph smiled. "Yeah. Turns out it didn't hold up very well when we actually needed it."

"Aww…." Mikey let out a sad sigh, closing his eyes in exhaustion. "'S ok Raphie…we can build….another one…"

Donnie frowned, feeling the youngest's forehead for the thousandth time as Mikey fought with sleep. "Just get some rest, Mikey. You need it."

Mikey seemed to take Donnie's advice rather than respond, because he was slipping off soon after that. Raph and Donnie glanced at each other, both trying hard not to make their worry too obvious.

"I'm gonna get some more water to boil." Raph said, getting up – but suddenly, Mikey weakly wrapped his arms around his middle with a pained noise, both older brothers snapping their heads back to him with wide eyes.

"Mikey!" Donnie got down to check on him, and Raph moved to follow, but –

The ground suddenly felt cold. Raph's eyes shifted there, before slowly turning to look out the entrance in horror. Nothing was there, but – the air filled with voices –

" _Donnie._ " Raph said desperately, breathlessly, before whipping around to his little brothers with alarm and commands in his eyes. Donnie returned a look of escalating panic, scooping Mikey up with trembling arms.

Darkness filled the cave, and Raph was already panicking before it appeared. " _NO, NO, NO, NO!_ " He cried, unsheathing his one sai and scrambling in front of the other two, but there was nothing they could do to stop it – fire raced up the cave walls with booming sound in the appearance of a large black figure with beady red eyes.

It roared in ancient languages, angrily belting fire at the roof of the cave, and Raph spun around to pick up both little brothers. There was nowhere to run but into the caves.

" _Raph!_ " Donnie cried in a panic as he bolted, and the monster quickly chased after them. It was only the decreasing of space and large boulders further into the cave and the brothers' smaller size that kept Raph just a hair ahead of it, running toward what looked like a small opening into a cavern at the back, and Donnie held Mikey tighter and buried his face, unable to look.

With a cry, Raph jumped through the opening just as the monster got close enough to swipe, gravel and dust exploding after him. It roared furiously, pouring fire through the hole after them, just as they realized the ground ran out under their feet and Donnie heard surging water below them. But Raph suddenly seemed to be losing consciousness, closing his eyes with a pained groan and the two slipping from his grasp.

"RAPH!" Donnie cried, wrapping his arms tight around both of them. He looked wildly for anything that could save them, but it was no use – it was too dark to see, and they were plunging into a roaring, underground channel of water.

 _"We can't die here,"_ Donnie thought, holding as tight to the other two as he could. If it was the last thing he did, he was _not_ letting them get separated again. _"I don't want us to die here! Leo, I don't wanna die!"_

As the sound of the water raced up to meet them, Donnie held his breath.

* * *

As always, thank you SO MUCH for the reviews (and some tumblr follows! GASP!) It makes my day talking with other fans :)


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